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THREE THINGS 





the 


basis 


of all 


The attraction of sex is 


“being in love.” 


THREE THINGS 


BY 

ELINOR GLYN 

M 



PUBLISHERS 

HEARST’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO. 
NEW YORK 

Cop/2- 





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Copyright, 1915, by 

Hearst’s International Library Co., Inc. 

All rights reserved , including the translation into foreign 
languages , including the Scandinavian 


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THE QUINN Sc BOOEN CO. PRES8 
RAHWAY, N. 4. 


JAN 27 1915 

©CI.A393485 ^ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction .vii 

I The Old Order Changeth . . i 

II The Gospel of Common Sense . . 19 

III Marriage.33 

IV After Marriage. 51 

V Should Divorce Be Made Easier? . 64 


VI The Responsibility of Motherhood 78 

VII The Responsibility of Motherhood. 

Second Paper.95 












INTRODUCTION 


I HAVE called this little collection of arti¬ 
cles which I have written “ THREE 
THINGS ” because to me there seem to 
be just three essentials to strive after in life. 
Truth—Common Sense and Happiness. To be 
able to see the first enables us to employ the 
second, and so realise the third. And in these 
papers I have tried to suggest some points which 
may be of use to others who, like myself, are 
endeavouring to reason out ideas to a good end. 

How often one sees people who could be very 
happy, and who yet with incredible blindness 
and stupidity are running their heads against 
stone walls (or feather beds!) and destroying 
all chance of peace for themselves, their mates, 
and their households! 

Everything is very simple when it is analysed 
down to what nature meant in the affair—and by 
doing this one gets a broader perspective. 

For instance, nature meant one thing in the 
connection of man and woman—and civilisation 
has grafted quite another meaning into it, and 


INTRODUCTION 


viii 


the two things are often at war in the State 
called marriage! In the chapters devoted to 
this subject I have tried to exploit some points 
which are not generally faced, in the hope that if 
understood they might help towards Happiness. 

The thing which more than half of humanity 
seems to forget is the end they have in view! 
They desire something really ardently, and yet 
appear incapable of keeping their minds from 
straying into side issues, which must logically mil¬ 
itate against, and probably prevent, their desire’s 
accomplishment. This is very strange ! A woman 
for instance profoundly desires to retain a man’s 
love when she sees it is waning—but her 
wounded vanity causes her to use methods of re¬ 
proach and recrimination towards him, calcu¬ 
lated certainly to defeat her end, and accelerate 
his revolt. 

I feel that in publishing this little collection 
in America I must ask indulgence for the parts 
which seem to touch upon exclusively English 
aspects of the subjects under discussion—be¬ 
cause the main ideas apply to humanity in gen¬ 
eral and not to any particular country. The 
paper on Divorce is of course written from an 
English point of view, but its suggestions may 
be of some use to those who are interested in the 



INTRODUCTION 


IX 


question of divorce in the abstract, and are on 
the alert as to the results of its facilities in 
America. I do not presume to offer an opinion 
as to its action there; and in this paper am not 
making the slightest criticism of the American 
divorce laws—only stating what seems to me 
should rule all such questions in any country, 
namely,—Common sense and consideration for 
the welfare of the community. 

Above all things I am an incorrigible opti¬ 
mist! and I truly believe that the world is ad¬ 
vancing in every way and that we are already in 
the dawn of a new era of the understanding, and 
the exploitation for our benefit of the great 
forces of nature. But we of the majority of 
non-scientists, were until so lately sound asleep 
to any speculative ideas, and just drowsed on 
without thinking at all, that it behooves us now 
that we are awake in the new century to try to 
see straight and analyse good and evil. 

In my papers on the Responsibility of 
Motherhood I may be quite out of touch with 
American ideas—but I will chance that in the 
hope that some parts of them may be of service, 
taken broadly. 


Paris, 1914. 


Elinor Glyn. 



I 


THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

T HE Old order changeth, giving place to 
New; and it would be well to realise this 
everlasting fact before we decide that 
the world is waxing evil, and the times are wax¬ 
ing late. And who can say that out of the seeth¬ 
ing of the present some noble and glorious ideals 
of life for men and women may not spring? 

Surely it is unwise to read in the writing upon 
the wall, as so many do, only a pessimistic pre¬ 
sage of inevitable death. If there is writing for 
students of evolution to read, then it should be 
taken as a warning indication which direction to 
avoid and which to take. Unrest is a sign, not 
of decay, but of life. Stagnation alone gives 
warning of death. 

And there are a number of facts to be faced 
before we can give an opinion either way. 

The first of these is, that all civilised nations 
are endeavouring to stamp out ignorance and 
disease, and that an enormous advance in this 


2 


THREE THINGS 


direction can be observed in the last fifty years. 
And, taking a general view of the civilised 
peoples, a far greater number of their units now 
lead less dreadful and degraded lives. 

And surely these indications of mankind’s ad¬ 
vancement are as plain as are some other signs 
of decline. 

The stirring up of the masses by insufficient 
education is bound to produce unrest, and until 
the different elements have assorted themselves 
into their new places in the scheme of things, 
how can there be tranquillity? All is out of 
balance, and has disturbed the machinery of the 
country’s life, for the time being. But if the 
aim has been for enlightenment, the eventual 
outcome must be good. 

All scum in a boiling pot rises to the top, and 
makes itself seen, concealing the pure liquid be¬ 
neath, until it is skimmed off. And so we have 
political demagogues shouting the untenable fal¬ 
lacy that all men are equal, together with other 
flamboyant nonsense; and hooligan suffragists 
smashing windows. But all these are only the 
scum upon the outside of a great upward move¬ 
ment in mankind, and are not to be taken as 
the incontestable proof of the vicious condition 
of the whole mass. 



THREE THINGS 


The spirit that is abroad, though one of great 
unrest, is not one of decadence, but of progress. 
But it would be folly not to admit that there are 
aspects of it which presage disaster unless di¬ 
rected, just as the pot will boil over if not 
watched. 

It may be interesting to scrutinise, with un¬ 
emotional common sense, some of the causes of 
the present state of things, and perhaps from 
this investigation come to some conclusions as 
to their remedy or encouragement. 

Nature, whether human, animal, or vegetable, 
will not be hurried, or she produces the ab¬ 
normal. Until about a hundred years ago every¬ 
thing seemed to be moving on with a very slow 
and gradual evolution. Some things changed a 
little, others it would seem, not at all. And 
then, after the first quarter of the nineteenth 
century, Science and Invention appeared to join 
hands, and, with small beginnings, gradually 
assuming mammoth proportions, to revolution¬ 
ise the very universe. The result has been to 
make life easy to a class which formerly had to 
work hard for the bare necessities of existence. 
With this came education. The lowest of the 
people were taught to read and write, and the 
most ill-chosen and elementary book-knowledge 



4 


THREE THINGS 


was flung upon unploughed soil, unprepared for 
its reception. Nature was hurried, and began 
to produce, not fair flowers at once, but the ab¬ 
normal and diseased. A little knowledge is a 
dangerous thing. 

The education these crude minds received was 
not of the sort to show them their ignorance, 
and implant in them a noble desire for more 
teaching, so as to achieve a gradual advancement, 
but was just sufficient to stir up discontent with 
what was, and produce countless square pegs, 
clamouring to get into round holes for which 
they were unfitted. 

Mechanical inventions did away with numbers 
of home duties, and even the meagre education 
the masses then received was enough to cause 
them to throw grave doubts upon the accepted 
religion of the country. The timid souls were 
released from the fear of hell, as a powerful 
factor for the determining of their actions. The 
bold felt they would have the support and sym¬ 
pathy of numbers of their fellows in breaking 
up old beliefs, and the intelligent of both kinds 
refused to swallow many of the dogmas any 
longer. 

Thus the bridle which, through the Christian 
ages, had guided mankind, became as a mere 



THREE THINGS 


o 


thread. And all these loosened steeds ran wild 
and are still running wild, until enlightenment 
shall come to them, and they will perceive that 
each individual is responsible to God for him¬ 
self. 

The cry that the churches are emptying is per¬ 
haps true; and if it is a fact, then of what use 
to lament it? It would be more logical to search 
for the cause. If people do not come of their 
oTwn accord, there is no law to oblige them to do 
so. Consequently, if the churches wish for their 
return, it is their business to provide fare which 
will induce them to take this course. 

Education has encouraged men and women to 
think for themselves, and the religiously minded, 
who would willingly remain under some guid¬ 
ance, have begun to perceive how very wide 
apart Christ’s beautiful teaching is from the in¬ 
terpretation of it which they often receive in 
church; while the others, who had never any re¬ 
ligious aspirations at all, are glad that the weight 
of public opinion and custom no longer forces 
them into irksome attendance. To fill churches 
with worshippers drawn there largely through 
hope of Heaven or fear of Hell, or because it 
was considered respectable and custom bound 
them to conform to its mandates, surely could 



6 


THREE THINGS 


not have been very acceptable to God. And 
the percentage who went truly to pour forth their 
love and worship, are still pouring it forth, be¬ 
cause it came, and comes, from their hearts 
whether they attend church or no. 

The modern spirit is full of what Edmond 
Holmes calls the desire to ask the teacher or 
person in authority for his credentials. And if 
these are not entirely satisfactory, the influence 
he can hope to wield will be nil. 

To deplore anything that may happen to a 
country, or to ourselves, is waste of time. We 
should search for the reason of it, and if it 
proves to be because there is some ineradicable 
cause, intelligence should then be used to better 
the condition which results. Worship of some¬ 
thing glorious and beyond ourselves will always 
swell the human heart, and if the accepted forms 
of the religion of a country can no longer pro¬ 
duce this emotion, it is not because the human 
heart is changing, but because there is something 
in those forms which no longer fulfils its mission. 

The cry of the fear of the net of Rome is 
futile also. People drift to where they belong, 
and Rome seems to offer to take all spiritual 
responsibility from the shoulders of her children. 
It gives them an emotional satisfaction which 



THREE THINGS 


7 


brings comfort to all, and amongst these any of 
hysterical nature probably become far happier 
and better citizens under her wing than they 
would otherwise have been. No nets will catch 
the expanding soul which is rising out of its pal¬ 
try self into ideals nearer to God. 

During the earlier days when religion held 
sway in England over at least nine-tenths of fe¬ 
male lives, superfluous women were content as a 
rule to lead grey, uneventful existences, making 
no more mark on their time than if they had 
been flocks of sheep. But with the breakdown 
of this force, and greater freedom of ideas, they 
have brought themselves into prominence—the 
scum as a shrieking sisterhood, and the pure ele¬ 
ments unobtrusively, as leaders of countless 
noble works. 

Meanwhile, in every class of the community 
the desire “ to move ” is felt. Travelling, for¬ 
merly the luxury of the rich, now is indulged in 
by an ever-increasing company. The aspect of 
family life is changed, and amusement is within 
the reach of all. 

It is not reasonable to suppose with this total 
alteration in the view of existence, that many 
things that we held beautiful and sacred should 
not have gone by the board—things such as filial 



8 


THREE THINGS 


respect, gentle manners, chivalry, obedience. 
We are undoubtedly in an unpleasant state of 
incompletion as a nation to-day, but by no means 
in one of decadence. And if only the two great 
dangers do not swamp us—a mawkish and hys¬ 
terical humanitarianism, and the heedless pur¬ 
suit of pleasure as the only end—the upward 
tendency of progress is bound to go on. Inven¬ 
tions, aided by science in all its ramifications, 
have made life pleasant, and all these benefits 
have come too quickly for the recipients to be 
prepared to receive them with calm. Their equi¬ 
librium is disturbed, and they are led into ex¬ 
aggerations, and so the ugly side of the spirit 
of the Great Unrest is born. But, underneath, 
the English people are a sane, healthy stock in 
mind and body, and when education has opened 
their minds and broadened their understanding, 
they will surely allow their birthright of com¬ 
mon sense among the nations to have sway 
again. Instead of standing aside and lamenting 
that times are evil and that the nation is going 
down hill, it behoves all thinking people to 
gather their forces together and seriously apply 
themselves to consider how they can better this 
condition of things. In their daily life they can 
do so by setting up a high standard of sanity 



THREE THINGS 


9 


and right behaviour, by the encouragement of 
fine aims and high ends, by the firm avoidance 
of hypocrisy and hysterical altruism, and by in¬ 
telligent explanation to those under their care 
of the reason why individual responsibility is 
necessary for the welfare of the community at 
large. 

And a most important lesson for every one to 
learn is the law of cause and effect. The great 
rush of modern life is apt to produce an incon¬ 
sequence of action. Anything good or bad is in¬ 
dulged in without time for thought as to its re¬ 
sult. But the law of the boomerang is immu¬ 
table, and its action goes on for ever —what we 
send out we receive again, sooner or later, for 
good or ill. 

The first principle of that great and wonder¬ 
ful wave of “ New Thought ” which is sweeping 
over America, and is beginning to find some 
understanding in this country, is that the respon¬ 
sibility of each individual’s well-being rests with 
himself, and that his environment is the result of 
what his consciousness has been able to attract 
to himself. 

And, as no one limits us but ourselves, as soon 
as a man’s consciousness begins strongly to cre¬ 
ate in his own mind new and better conditions, 



10 


THREE THINGS 


he will inevitably draw them to himself in fact. 
From God there can emanate nothing but Good. 
It is the individual’s own action which brings 
his punishment, or reward. If this fundamental 
principle could be investigated by responsible 
scientists, unhampered by theological influences, 
and with no prejudice as to the idea’s being re¬ 
garded as a mere culte, its exactness could per¬ 
haps be mathematically proved beyond a cavil¬ 
ling doubt. Possibly then the doctrine might 
be allowed to be taught in the public schools, 
to the everlasting benefit of the growing 
race. 

To say the least of it, it would inculcate an 
immense self-respect. 

There should not be, and I believe there is 
not, any law which can prevent the lowest in the 
land from rising to the highest place —if he is 
fitted for it. It is the ceaseless cry of the unfit 
unit for some situation above his capabilities, 
which is a distressing feature of modern life. 
But, even in this, the spirit shown in the desire 
to rise is good; while if he had the will to fit 
himself for what he aspires to, it would be 
splendid and great. And these are the men 
and women who succeed, no matter what avo¬ 
cations they may be engaged in. The others, 



THREE THINGS 


11 


the shouters, only hamper the wheels of prog¬ 
ress and fall eventually as the dust in the ruts. 

Formerly there was a hard line drawn between 
“ gentlemen ” and common men. And there 
were all sorts of things that, however bad he 
might be, a “ gentleman” did not do; or if he 
did commit these actions, his punishment was 
swift. He was obliged to face the ordeal of a 
duel, or he received the cut direct from his own 
class. 

These ideas of behaviour, accompanied by the 
responsibility for the welfare of numbers of ten¬ 
ants upon his property—responsibility very of¬ 
ten nobly sustained—produced in the old Eng¬ 
lish aristocrat a very fine specimen indeed. And 
from him downwards in all the social classes, a 
high tone of honour was maintained. But now 
the democratic idea is sweeping away these 
classes and these standards. The State is taking 
the power for good from the individual, and the 
machine is crushing the man; so it behooves all 
serious thinkers more than ever to use their logi¬ 
cal common sense to supply the place once oc¬ 
cupied by the old ideals. Nothing is so arrogant 
as ignorance—and loud shouting ever concealed 
an empty pate. 

Part of the crude spirit of the Great Unrest 



12 


THREE THINGS 


of to-day manifests itself by the effort of those 
beneath to demonstrate in words that they are 
the equals of those above them. And, pitiful 
and ridiculous as this is, the spirit arose in good. 
It is because those underneath desire to be the 
equals of those above them, that they use the 
only means their limited understandings provide 
them with, to try to obtain their ends. You 
never hear of numbers of people shouting that 
they are the equals of the tramp in the street! 

So it shows that even in this, the Great Unrest 
is an uplifting force. And when reason and edu¬ 
cation have directed its current, surely we may 
hope that we shall arise again as a nation, like 
a giant refreshed with wine. 

The study of the atavism of races, the study 
of heredity, the study of the influence of the wel¬ 
fare of the mother upon her unborn child, are 
all useful and expanding studies for ordinary 
thinking minds, and are quite within the scope 
of the average intelligence. But the modern 
hatred of all restraint—another failing born in 
the good of desire for freedom—makes it diffi¬ 
cult to preach any course of action which would 
involve curtailment of time or pleasure. 

You often hear people say about some misfor¬ 
tune, “ Just as I expected, such and such hap- 



THREE THINGS 


13 


pened,” and they do not stop to realise that their 
expectancy helped the thing which they feared, 
to materialise. No one can deny the force of 
imagination. Its existence has been abundantly 
proved. For instance, there was a case which 
was in the newspapers some time ago, of the 
guard on a Russian train who believed he was 
locked into the cold-storage van, and wrote a 
letter describing how he was being frozen to 
death. And he was actually found dead in the 
morning, although the temperature of the car 
had never gone below freezing point! 

People will readily credit this, but will ridicule 
the idea that their own imaginations are daily 
helping or hindering their own and others’ lives. 

Marconi demonstrated that messages can be 
transmitted by wireless telegraphy, and his dis¬ 
covery became a thing of commercial value. So 
it was believed in as nothing marvellous, but 
merely as a new departure of science. Yet the 
numberless proofs of other currents beyond our 
actual sight which manifest themselves each day 
in every life, and influence it, are unconsidered 
quantities, if not actually denied. 

But there they are; and though, as the demon¬ 
stration of an exact science, they are laughed to 
scorn, their force is unconsciously admitted in a 



THREE THINGS 


hundred cant phrases, such as, “ He was under 
an evil influence,”—“ She makes you feel better 
because she is so cheerful,” etc., etc.—Both these 
things here alluded to as forces are intangible, 
and yet are real proofs of the power of imagina¬ 
tion. 

This shows how tremendously important it 
is never to allow our imagination to run into 
prognostications of evil, either in predictions for 
our country, for ourselves, or for our friends. 
Each unit should try to help the great force for 
good by sending forth strong positive thoughts 
for its upliftment. 

Think, for a moment, under what a terrible 
shadow the soul of Christian man has lain for 
these many hundred years! Ever since the doc¬ 
trine of original sin was forced upon his belief, 
his soul has come into the world handicapped by 
millions of thought-currents expecting it to do 
evil, unless continuously controlled and curtailed 
and punished into a semblance of good! It can¬ 
not be wondered at, then, that sometimes these 
forces become too strong for it, and it does fall 
into sin. But what an insult to God, the source 
of all love and beauty and holiness, to suppose 
He would permit a tarnished atom of Himself 
to reach the exquisite world He has created! 



THREE THINGS 


15 


All who wish for enlightenment upon this 
subject, and as to how they should view their 
children and their race, should read Edmond 
Holmes’s masterly work upon elementary edu¬ 
cation, “ What Is, and What Might Be.” 

We cannot stop the force which our own ac¬ 
tion, in giving education to the lowest people, 
has put in motion, and which has produced, from 
their status upward, the “ Great Unrest.” We 
can hardly even hope to control it; but we can 
and must do all in our power to guide and direct 
it into channels for the good and glory of our 
dear country, making it, as the fire Prometheus 
stole from heaven, an incentive to noble actions 
and great ends. 

Could not the people with large influence, 
who are interested in this matter, band together 
and discuss some scheme for the sending out of 
lecturers all over England who would explain, 
with common sense entirely stripped of all poli¬ 
tics or religion, to the rising generation, the vast 
importance of individual responsibility—the duty 
of all citizens—the glory of helping the great 
force aright? Explanations, in a practical and 
simple form, would do more than a thousand 
laws, or all the thunders from the pulpit or the 
platform. If the children in every school could 



16 


THREE THINGS 


be made to feel they are all little men and 
women, full of God’s gift of a soul, able and 
willing to help the raising of their country, they 
would soon graft a new spirit into their homes. 
They would respond as readily as do the hun¬ 
dreds of brave men who volunteer for active 
service, and probable death, to reinforce a fire- 
brigade, or a life-boat’s crew. Children are so 
wise when their fine instincts are appealed to. 

If only this fundamental principle could be 
understood—that each individual has in this life, 
or some former one, attracted to himself the ex¬ 
act environment that he is now in—and that it 
lies only with himself whether he remains in it, 
or lifts himself out of it, there would be no 
more class hatred, no more railing against hard 
luck and injustice, but a steady increase of bet¬ 
terment all over the world. 

The unfortunate thing is, that nearly all 
writers and talkers and lecturers, who are en¬ 
thusiasts, and therefore really believe in what 
they are preaching, have so little common sense. 

They carry away their readers or audiences 
for the moment upon the current of their own 
divine enthusiasm, but when their utterances 
come to be measured by the cold light of fact, 
the logical conclusions are so faulty, that the 



THREE THINGS 


17 


whole, which contained many thoughts of great 
and beautiful worth, is dismissed as the ravings 
of a dreamer, and ceases to have any effect. 

The main attribute of any religion, of any 
ethical teaching, of any principle—to be of use 
to men and women at the present stage of their 
development —must be incontestable common 
sense. Ridiculous sentimentality should be ruth¬ 
lessly crushed, and investigation of the meaning 
of Nature should be strenuously encouraged. 
And with clear eyes we should try to see the 
truth. Let those born fighters who like fighting 
for fighting’s sake, and who now wage war 
against windmills, being armed with prejudice 
and false conceptions of man’s place in relation 
to God, turn their belligerent powers to the 
demolition of the double-headed Hydra, Hypoc¬ 
risy and Deceit. 

It is the duty of every true man and woman at 
this hour of their country’s day to begin to 
THINK, to weigh for himself or herself the 
meanings of the signs of the times, to use their 
critical faculties, to face facts honestly, unham¬ 
pered by prudery, convention, or the doctrines 
of the Church. And then they will see for them¬ 
selves that the Great Unrest is a force, the direc¬ 
tion of which, for good or ill, lies in their own 



18 


THREE THINGS 


hands. And according to the way they fulfil the 
responsibility entailed upon them in this matter, 
they or their children will reap the reward, or 
pay the price. The Great Unrest in its seething 
is still molten metal, which can be poured into 
what mould we will. 

To call this Great Unrest a sign of decadence 
and a presage of destruction, would be as fal¬ 
lacious as to say that electricity is an entirely 
mischievous force. Both are mischievous when 
undirected, and both are glorious when used for 
good. 

The test of the expansion of man’s soul is the 
extent of its outlook. The puny spirit sees an 
hour or two ahead; the more advanced probably 
conceives plans to benefit himself and his loved 
ones day by day. The developed soul desires 
the good of his country. But the soul that is 
infinite and emancipated sees into eternity and 
demands of God the regeneration of humanity. 



II 


THE GOSPEL OF COMMON SENSE 

O F all the attributes which we of the twen¬ 
tieth century should most strenuously 
encourage, that of common sense ranks 
first, in the face of the hysteria which threatens 
to weaken, if it does not swamp, all the wonder¬ 
ful new spirit of progress which is abroad. 

Common sense applied to everything alone 
can restore our equilibrium as a nation, because 
as the years of this new century go on hysteria 
seems to increase. Nothing in the way of a pub¬ 
lic event can happen, from the just condemna¬ 
tion of a criminal for some atrocious crime, to 
the sinking of an ocean mammoth ship, but a 
large section of the public makes an outcry in¬ 
spired by altruism or so-called humanitarianism, 
both developing into hysteria. 

Let us look at the reason of this carefully, and 
we shall see that this state of things is the direct 
result of an irresponsible employment of the 
gigantic power of thought. Some few excitable 
19 


20 


THREE THINGS 


brains start an idea, the circulation of which is 
made possible by the modern facilities for ex¬ 
pression in the press. And because the majority 
of readers do not think for themselves, they 
are drawn into the current of unrest which has 
thus been suggested to their imagination, each 
individual augmenting its strength until it grows 
into a torrent of folly. 

This proves the tremendous importance it is 
to a nation that each of its units should realise 
his own responsibility in regard to this matter. 
The moment that such a thing could be accom¬ 
plished—that is, that the understanding of the 
power of thought could bfc brought home to 
people—there are millions of sound, honest folk 
who would deliberately try to use their posses¬ 
sion of it for the good of themselves and the 
race, and who would bring up their children to 
do likewise. 

The wave of complete materialism which 
passed over Europe during what we call the 
Victorian period discouraged any personal inves¬ 
tigation of forces beyond what could actually be 
proved by the senses. Numberless examples of 
natural phenomena were laughed to scorn as the 
illusions of the ignorant. People read their 
Bibles, wherein there are countless instances 



THREE THINGS 


21 


shown of the power of thought, and never 
dreamed of applying the teaching to themselves. 
How such a materialistic age ever accepted 
Christ’s miracles is a matter for wonderment, 
although now, looked at from the point of view 
of those who have investigated the currents of 
nature, the miracles are merely a proof of Jesus’ 
divine understanding of these currents and 
forces in their greatest measure. We modern 
people are only as yet at the experimental stage, 
and hedged in by timidity and custom, but there 
is no reason why we should not advance if we 
desire to do so. 

Think how the power of thought showed it¬ 
self about the Titanic disaster! There is no 
need now to go over its hysterical effects upon 
us on land, how in our misery and anxiety 
we praised and blamed from excitable im¬ 
agination, before any actual facts could be 
known to justify either course. But let us in¬ 
stead try to imagine what in its glorious form 
it did upon that great ship on the night of her 
overwhelming. 

Everything seems to have been calm and in 
fair order. Why? Because it has been now 
proved that the majority of those on board did 
not think the ship could sink. Only a limited 



22 


THREE THINGS 


number of men knew that she not only could, 
but would, and these glorious and splendid souls 
did their duty to the last, with the awful knowl¬ 
edge of certain death in their hearts. Their 
names should be written in letters of gold— 
heroes, indeed! But, meanwhile, the power of 
thought had kept all calm, and had permitted 
the saving of the women and children without 
panic. 

Think for a moment what would have hap¬ 
pened if the passengers of all classes had been 
aware, from the first moment of the collision, 
that all were bound to go down who could not 
find places in the boats. The power of thought 
would then have created a mad panic of fear 
which no officers’ pistols could have kept in 
check, and which might have produced a rush 
upon the lifeboats which would have swamped 
them all. But as it was, the power of thought 
in the few individuals who realised the general 
peril, was used by them in a godlike suppression 
of their own emotion, which produced an an¬ 
swering vibration of calm in the majority under 
their care. 

I do not want to refer to the awful story 
except in so far as it is a concrete illustration of 
what I wish to write about—the power of 



THREE THINGS 


23 


thought examined with common sense in its re¬ 
lation to the happiness of each individual, and 
the responsibility of its employment by each in¬ 
dividual for the benefit of the community—not 
from the desire to use this opportunity to circu¬ 
late propaganda for any of the new ethical 
teachings, but simply from a common-sense 
point of view to see what good we can get out of 
a belief that is, I suppose, common to them 
all. 

Now let us consider what most of us do actu¬ 
ally know about this power of thought. We all 
are aware that no picture can be painted, no ma¬ 
chinery invented, before a clear vision of it has 
been realised in the creator’s brain. Not a single 
conscious action can be put into motion and force 
without its having first occurred to the imagina¬ 
tion. The painter’s hand and brush would be 
of no avail undirected by his brain or mind, 
which has first mentally visualised what it wishes 
to create in fact. Draw the analogy from this, 
and you will see that what you think about must 
have an enormous bearing upon your life. If 
thought, when inspired by desire, is strong 
enough to cause the hand to reproduce the vision 
of the imagination of the artist, this is an incon¬ 
testable proof that thought is a very strong force 



24 


THREE THINGS 


indeed. You will agree with this if you—each 
individual who is reading these words—begin to 
examine yourself with truth. 

Admitted, then, that you perceive the force of 
thought. Now consider what miserable think¬ 
ing is likely to bring you. It, according to the 
analogy above, can only eventually attract for 
you in fact the miserable conditions that you 
have dwelt upon in imagination. If, on the con¬ 
trary, you think constantly of fine and prosper¬ 
ous things, you must by this reasoning, be con¬ 
necting yourself with the currents which can 
bring them in their material form. 

Therefore, every time you say “ I am ill,” or 
think “ I am ill,” are you not helping the illness 
to materialise? because the power of thought, 
which you cannot deny as the initial cause of 
every action, has then been turned to aid the con¬ 
dition of ill health. 

Supposing for some cause you really are ill, 
why then help this evil state to augment by your 
thoughts? Rather impede its progress as far 
as you can by creating good-thought con¬ 
ditions. 

You may reply, “ But I am constantly doing 
this, and yet nothing good comes.” Pause and 
use your common sense by remembering that for 



THREE THINGS 


25 


twenty—thirty—forty years perhaps, when you 
did not analyse matters, you were laying up for 
yourself numberless stumbling-blocks by wrong 
thinking, which according to the law we are dis¬ 
cussing must be surmounted before you can start 
on a clear road. And the reason why you do 
not immediately receive the result of your good 
thoughts is that you are still under the action of 
your bad ones. But if you recognise this law of 
the power of thought, you need not incur for 
yourself any further debts to pay. 

And to recognise it as a law you have only to 
use your common sense to see that it is not con¬ 
ceivable that thoughts can have no effect outside 
your own brain. They cannot be wasted and go 
into nothingness, they must strike some answer¬ 
ing vibration somewhere, and it is surely rational 
to suppose they will strike the kindred vibration 
rather than some totally different one, as the 
Marconi messages strike the pole in tune to 
them. At least, it is worth while trying to be¬ 
lieve this, because if you can it will make you 
happier. 

Alas! I am not a scientist who can dogmat¬ 
ically prove every fraction of my beliefs. I only 
want to awaken my readers to think for them¬ 
selves upon this interesting subject, for the facts 



26 


THREE THINGS 


are there for us all to investigate, unaided by 
scientists, if we will. 

So without any more argument, shall we take 
it for granted that you are with me thus far, 
and have seen my point? Yes. Then let us 
examine what our thoughts do for us. 

For example, let us suppose a man has a dis¬ 
ease which is believed to be incurable. His 
thoughts tell him so constantly, and the thoughts 
of his friends, often expressed in words, con¬ 
vince him still further of his misfortune. He is 
certain nothing he can do will make it better, 
and any remedy that is applied will only meet 
with failure. He has made his mental picture 
of an incurable disease; and so he is helping the 
material result to accomplish itself. But, as hope 
springs eternal in the human breast, he still goes 
from doctor to doctor for fresh advice, while 
unconsciously nullifying the benefit he might re¬ 
ceive from doing so by his attitude of mind in 
holding the belief that nothing can cure him. 
We must all of us know of cases like this, and 
have seen the gradual increase in the person’s 
illness. 

Now supposing that the starting-point is the 
same; the disease certainly is there, but the man 
is determined not to aid and augment this state 



THREE THINGS 


27 


of things, so whenever the thought presents it¬ 
self that he has an incurable disease he persist¬ 
ently banishes it and replaces it with one that 
he will grow well. He will be aiding that con¬ 
dition; he will be making himself the pole in 
tune to receive the answering vibrations of his 
mental picture. He will know that he must be 
drawing to himself every chance that science has 
up till this time of the world’s day been able to 
invent or discover for the betterment of such a 
disease as his. He will know that he is giving 
nature a free hand, and as far as he is able, he 
is opening every door to the probability that he 
may grow well. Now, if we admit the power 
of thought, we must admit it has power to go 
both these ways. Is it not worth while trying 
to think good things for ourselves, then, instead 
of evil ones? 

It does not seem possible, as I understand 
some assert, that by mere thinking and believing 
we can cure even a broken arm. Because, al¬ 
though the principle may be right in its eventu¬ 
ality, no one on earth can be quite advanced 
enough yet to draw these forces to himself suffi¬ 
ciently strongly to demonstrate it as Christ did. 
But we are at the stage when, by our thoughts, 
we can certainly aid physical means of better- 



28 


THREE THINGS 


ment. Thus when we or our friends are ill, it 
lies in our own hands whether we will aid or re¬ 
tard our or their recovery. 

Long years ago, before any of these psychic 
waves were discussed or given the least credence, 
I remember a very celebrated American doctor 
telling me, as a curious fact, that he often got 
his patients over the crisis of typhoid fever by 
telling them cheerfully beforehand that the dan¬ 
gerous moment was passed, and they were not to 
worry over the seemingly worse physical sensa¬ 
tions they were perhaps about to experience— 
these were only the reaction. In that way, he 
said, he removed the amount of fear from the 
mind of the patient which otherwise might have 
been enough to cause the extra exertion to the 
heart which would have proved fatal at the criti¬ 
cal moment. The power of thought, you see, 
and nothing else, then saved them. 

To continue this line of reasoning in mental, 
not physical, things. Supposing you feel angry 
and resentful towards some one, and you send 
out thoughts of hate and ill-will. The pole in 
tune to such feelings in that person will answer 
and return them to you, and a condition of evil 
will be created. But supposing that, when per¬ 
haps the justly angry and resentful thoughts pre- 



THREE THINGS 


29 


sent themselves, you replace; them instantly with 
kind and loving ones. You will have discon¬ 
nected yourself with the evil thoughts of the 
other person, they can no longer reach you, and 
if he has any good in him you will have con¬ 
nected yourself with that good, and so peace can 
be established. 

All this is common sense, which is the only at¬ 
titude of mind with which to approach any new 
suggestion that we may get benefit from it, and 
not through our arrogant ignorance dismiss it 
as nonsense, until we have proved it to be such. 
A hundred years ago the telephone would have 
been considered either as magic or the vapour- 
ings of a madman if an individual had tried to 
explain it. We say that “ France is developing 
a new spirit,” we say “ A wave of discontent 
seems to be passing over such and such a com¬ 
munity,” we are thus unconsciously admitting 
the power of forces beyond the perceptible. 
Why cannot we instantly grasp, then, what the 
power of our everyday thought is doing for us, 
and how careful we should be; in its direction to 
avoid augmenting the current of foolish and 
harmful ones—because unity is strength. There 
are many grains of good to be got out of all 
new ethical teachings, if only they can be sifted 



30 


THREE THINGS 


by common sense. The unfortunate part is, that 
very often it is only the faddists who expound 
them, and they go off at a tangent. One reads 
several pages of illuminating matter, and then, 
perhaps, one comes upon a chapter devoted to 
proving that mankind must train itself to live 
upon nuts or uncooked vegetables! Or that the 
only way to learn concentration is for the pupil 
to school himself mentally to stare for so rnany 
minutes at an imaginary spot in the solar plexus! 

Common sense revolts, although many may 
not be sufficiently trained to make the deduction 
that if God, the omnipotent, original, all-domi¬ 
nating dynamo, gave the flesh of bird, beast and 
fish, and the fruits and vegetables of the earth 
for mankind to feed upon, it is a little ridiculous 
for one sect to eliminate as food all but the 
special part of these aliments of which it ap¬ 
proves. Thus, common sense being affronted, 
all the rest of the teaching is likely to fall upon 
stony ground and only be received by the fad¬ 
dists in tune to this particular argument. No 
theory for the betterment of mankind will suc¬ 
ceed now with the mass of people or make any 
lasting mark upon time unless its basic principle 
can stand practical dissection. 

So that upon this subject of the power of 



THREE THINGS 


31 


thought, all that any one at the present stage 
can do, no matter what his own personal beliefs 
may be, is to try and awaken people to think 
about it themselves and make their own investi¬ 
gations ; to open a window for any soul to look 
through and see what he can get from it for him¬ 
self. Because, as yet, the scientists and psycholo¬ 
gists have not been sufficiently interested in the 
idea to endeavour to prove and demonstrate it 
as an exact science beyond all controversy. 
When this has been done, the intelligent will 
credit it because they are convinced, and the ig¬ 
norant because they follow the others without 
reason. 

All I hope to do by writing this article is to 
point out that the power of thought is a vital 
factor in our lives, and can really affect every 
hour of them for good or ill. 

Thousands of people who read the new ethical 
or religious books which are abroad, and even 
exploit their propaganda—thousands who at¬ 
tend the various meetings and services and lec¬ 
tures of the different societies, be they “ New 
Thought ” or any of the others on more or less 
the same lines—never dream of applying the 
teachings to a single ordinary thing, and still go 
on with their tempers and melancholy and flurry 



32 


THREE THINGS 


and fuss, just as they did before they ever heard 
of the idea that they can control and eliminate 
these things. An enormous majority of the pub¬ 
lic are frightened at the very name of a new re¬ 
ligion or ethical teaching, and think it wrong 
even to investigate what it teaches. But the 
broad-minded are unafraid of any knowledge, 
and can gain good by knowing about all devel¬ 
opments of human thought, provided they ap¬ 
proach each point with common sense and with¬ 
out hysteria, dismissing the idea of what we are 
accustomed to call the supernatural, and realis¬ 
ing that everything has a perfectly natural ex¬ 
planation when it can be understood, and it is 
only our ignorance which makes us shy at it. 

And so I would appeal to those who credit 
this power of thought to employ it responsibly, 
and to realise that they are all God’s atoms in 
the great scheme of things, and must use their 
personal force as a contribution to the vast 
thought-waves which can advance, or which, 
when ill directed, can sweep away a nation. 



Ill 


MARRIAGE 

I T is an interesting subject—and one which 
has touched, or will probably touch, most 
of our lives, therefore it may not be un¬ 
profitable to study it a little, and what it means 
and what it should mean; because, in the present 
upheaval of all our old beliefs, marriage, as a 
sensible institution, is being attacked upon many 
sides. 

It is extremely easy to pull down a house, but 
it requires skill and special training to rebuild 
it again; and before dragging the roof off and 
demolishing the walls, it would be wiser to have 
made a distinct plan and provided the materials 
ready for the reconstruction of a new habitation, 
that the rain and the wind may not overcome 
us when we have no shelter for our heads. But 
this is what the attackers of marriage have failed 
to do as yet. Here are three facts which we can 
begin by looking at. 

Firstly. Some kind of union between man 
33 


34 * 


THREE THINGS 


and woman, consolidated by the law, is neces¬ 
sary for the continuation of a race in vigour and 
moral upliftment. 

Secondly. It is admitted by great philoso¬ 
phers and deep thinkers that the welfare of the 
community is of more importance than the fluct¬ 
uating desires of the individual. 

Thirdly. A fine ideal, however impossible 
of attainment, is a force for good to be held-up 
before the eyes of the mass of the people, who, 
however much actual education has advanced, 
are still too unendowed with personal brain to 
have any judgment themselves—their capacities 
only allowing them to see the effects of things 
upon their immediate surroundings without per¬ 
ceiving the causes, and therefore leaving them 
incapable of judging what could be good for 
the country, the race, or humanity in general. 

After all these centuries, legal marriage still 
holds, because no one has been able to suggest 
any other union which could take its place with¬ 
out bringing chaos. And it seems more than 
likely that no one will ever be sufficiently in¬ 
spired so to do! Thus let us now consider the 
present legal marriage as still being a stable 
fact, and see how we can make the best of it. 
In it there are two things which both man and 



THREE THINGS 


35 


woman forget—or refuse to face—and which 
are perhaps the chief causes of most unhappi¬ 
ness. Man forgets that his kind words of love 
and sympathy matter far more to the actual 
happiness of the woman than any of his deeds: 
because words fill and satisfy her imagination, 
which is active whenever she is alone; and kind 
deeds, with few or indifferent words, make very 
little impression upon it. Woman forgets—or 
will not face—the fact that man is by nature a 
polygamous animal. There is no use in arguing 
about this and saying he ought not to be, and 
that it is a horrible idea. It is a physiological 
fact, and to dispute it is to criticise the Almighty’s 
scheme for ensuring a continued population. 
That man should have polygamous instincts is 
essential for this scheme to work against any 
odds. 

Whatever we choose to say in contradiction 
to this resolves itself into empty words, the fact 
of nature remaining. It would be just as sen¬ 
sible to try to argue that, because we do not like 
to drink sea water, it has no business to be salt! 
and to decide that it is not salt! and that we will 
not recognise that it is salt! The ocean would 
just laugh at us, and remain briny! And no 
doubt Nature laughs at silly woman too, when 



36 


THREE THINGS 


she tries to judge man without understanding 
the elementary principle of creation. 

This being grasped clearly, it must be seen 
that monogamous marriage is an ideal state, not 
a natural state, and it must be admitted to be 
such, and lived up to as an ideal, not undertaken 
with the notion that fidelity in man is natural, 
and infidelity an unnatural thing. It is the other 
way about because of the fundamental instincts 
of man, which continuously and subconsciously 
suggest to him the necessity for self-preserva¬ 
tion, and in its larger sense self-preservation 
means species-preservation. 

Woman, on the other hand, although uncon¬ 
sciously inspired by this same fundamental in¬ 
stinct of species-preservation, is not naturally 
polygamous, or rather polyandrous, because such 
a state would militate against this end by event¬ 
ually destroying pure offspring. She only be¬ 
comes so under certain conditions. Fidelity, 
then, is, so to speak, a natural state for woman, 
and she has not to fight against any fundamental 
instinct of her sex in order to preserve it—she 
has only to resist perverted desire, which is an 
exotic growth, the outcome of civilisation. Thus 
fidelity is much harder for man, who, to succeed 
in being faithful, is obliged to dominate a natu- 



THREE THINGS 


37 


ral instinct, which is a far more difficult thing to 
do than to fight against an exotic desire; be¬ 
cause all natural things are governed by inex¬ 
orable and eternal laws, and are not at the mercy 
of circumstance. Thus the natural instinct of 
man is at work all the time in continuous activity 
—and the exotic desire of woman is intermittent, 
and the result of circumstance. 

Of course, all this has been said before by 
every serious thinker, and I am only reiterating 
these facts because the general readers may have 
forgotten them, and I must bring them to their 
recollection to make the rest of our discussion 
upon marriage clear. 

These nature instincts being admitted, we can 
get on to a survey of legal marriage. At first, 
it must have been an affair of expediency. The 
woman was probably expected to be faithful, and 
brute force took care that she was so, or that 
she immediately paid the price of possible con¬ 
tamination of offspring by being killed. She 
was expected to be faithful for a natural reason, 
not for a spiritual or sentimental one; the reason 
being, as already inferred, to ensure the purity 
of the offspring. Man had no need to be faith¬ 
ful to one woman to secure this end, and never, 
in consequence, dreamed of being so. 



38 


THREE THINGS 


All through Pagan times infidelity in man was 
rampant and recognised, and not looked upon 
as sin. And when woman became civilised 
enough to have exotic desires, she lost her natu¬ 
ral instinct, that of preservation of pure off¬ 
spring, and became liable to vagrant fancies and 
often a vicious creature. 

Then the Church arrived and* turned mar¬ 
riage into a sacrament; presumably with the 
noble intention of trying to elevate man and 
overcome his carnal nature. Man outwardly 
conformed, and, with his whole soul’s desire to 
be true and to uplift himself, each individual 
who really believed no doubt did war with his 
instincts, and numbers probably succeeded in 
conquering them. While woman, always a crea¬ 
ture of more delicate nervous susceptibilities, 
flung herself with furore under the influences 
of spiritual things, and in the truly devout cases 
overcame her grafted desires and returned to 
natural instincts. But in beings of both sexes 
who were unconvinced by religion, infidelity 
continued to flourish, as it does even to this day. 
A man who truly believes that he is sinning in 
being unfaithful, and who understands that 
outside opinion is nothing in the soiling of his 
own soul, but that the matter is between him- 



THREE THINGS 


39 


self and God, will always be faithful in body 
to a woman he has wedded, whether he cares 
for her or not. But a man who has not this con¬ 
viction, and who does not live in this intimate 
relation to God, has no reason to hold him from 
indulging his natural instinct, except the fear 
of being found out, and when his sagacity has 
suggested safeguards against this, his instinct 
will certainly give itself expression. It is all 
a question of personal belief. There are num¬ 
bers of good and honest characters who do not 
feel convinced that entire fidelity in man to one 
woman was intended by the Creator, and who 
therefore feel no degradation in the latitude 
they allow themselves. It is not for us to argue 
which are right and which are wrong, but to 
stick to the subject of marriage and how it can 
perhaps be made happier in these present days, 
when all other conditions of life are changing, 
by a better comprehension of fundamental in¬ 
stincts and laws of nature. 

Woman has developed so far that generally 
she thinks she is (and sometimes she really is!) 
a reasonable and balanced creature, with strong 
individuality—and personal tastes and likes 
and dislikes. She is now ill-fitted to keep them 
all in subservience to man, unless he is her in- 



40 


THREE THINGS 


tellectual master. She may have wedded only 
because the emotion of sex (not understood as 
such, and called by a number of other names 
such as “love,” “devotion,” “attraction”) 
forced her at one of its powerful moments to 
take a physical mate—totally unsuited to her 
moral calibre. But she has knelt at the altar 
and sworn vows before God—and perhaps has 
fulfilled woman’s original mission in the world, 
and become the mother of children—so what is 
to be done to rectify her mistake and its un¬ 
happy consequences? 

She must look the whole circumstances of it 
in the face and ask herself whether she herself 
threw dust in her own eyes as regards the char¬ 
acter of her husband, whether he deceived her 
in this, or whether they just drifted together, 
each to blame as much as the other, through the 
attraction of sex and the cruelty of ignorance. 
She may regret it a thousandfold—but she has 
done the thing of her own free will, no one 
forced her to wed the man; she may have done 
so unwillingly in some cases—and for ulterior 
motives, but at all events she was consenting 
and not dragged to church resisting, and so if 
she is sensible she will use the whole of her 
intelligence to make the best of it. She will 



THREE THINGS 


41 


look to the end of her every action and her 
every thought. Will brooding over her 
“ rights,” and the wrongs he has inflicted, mend 
them? Will it do anything but give her vanity 
—the satisfaction of self-pity? Certainly not. 

If she has really evolved enough to wish to 
impose her opinions and individuality upon her 
household or the community, she will have real¬ 
ised that the welfare of the home for which she 
is responsible, and the community to which she 
belongs, are, or ought to be, of far more conse¬ 
quence to her than her own personal emotions. 
Therefore she must ask herself whether she has 
any right to upset the happiness of the one, and 
the conception of good of the other, by indulging 
in personal quarrels and bickerings, or open 
scandal with her mate. A really noble and un¬ 
selfish woman would never consider her personal, 
emotion before her duty to God and to her 
neighbour. It is because the outlook of woman 
is as a rule so pitifully narrow and self-centred 
that she often makes a useless and unhappy wife, 
and shipwrecks her own and others’ futures. 

Man has gone on with his brute force, and his 
physical and mental attraction, and his tastes 
and beliefs and aspirations very much the same 
for thousands of years. Numbers of them were 



42 


THREE THINGS 


brutes then, and numbers are brutes still and will 
remain so. It is only woman who has so in¬ 
credibly changed, and after staying immeasur¬ 
ably behind in importance and in intellectuality 
for countless centuries, now seeks to equal if not 
outstep man in all things. It would be well for 
man to wake up to the fact that he is now wed¬ 
ding a woman with every sense and nerve and 
conception of life far in advance of what his 
mother believed herself to be capable of—and 
so his methods towards her in return must not 
be as his father’s were. If man wishes to have 
the good, domestic, obedient wife his father— 
perhaps one should go farther back and say 
grandfather!—expected—and got—he must 
either choose a timid weakling who becomes 
just his echo, or he must learn to treat the 
modern woman as a comrade, a being who men¬ 
tally can understand and follow his aspirations 
and even assist him in his desires, a creature to 
respect and consult, and whom he cannot rule 
just because he is a man and she is a woman—but 
can only do so, and bring her to obedience, 
when he has shown her his intellectual superi¬ 
ority and his wisdom. 

Woman is as willing to be ruled as ever she 
was—she always adores a master; but she has 



THREE THINGS 


43 


grown too intelligent to bow her head just be¬ 
cause a man is a man —he must be the man. 
Man is naturally fighting for his old omnipo¬ 
tence, which he possessed regardless of his per¬ 
sonal endowment, simply because he was a male 
creature—and the foolish section of woman is 
fighting man, with bombs and tricks and frantic 
words, instead of convincing him by her wisdom 
and attainments, by her demonstrations of 
knowledge of life and its duties and responsi¬ 
bilities, that she has grown at last indeed fitted 
to be treated as an equal and a comrade, not as 
a plaything and a slave. 

Who does not respect a woman who fulfils 
all her obligations with grace and charm, whose 
house is well ordered, whose friends are well 
entertained by her fine mind, and whose children 
are well brought up and full of understanding? 
She is indeed more precious than rubies and far 
more full of influence for the good of her com¬ 
munity than she who shouts of rights and 
wrongs and votes and such-like. The first wo¬ 
man could control a hundred votes, and help a 
government, but the second can only clog the 
wheels of the sex’s advancement. 

Now we get back to marriage! 

And the first and foremost thing to be under- 



44 


THREE THINGS 


stood is that it is a frightful responsibility to 
undertake, and that all those who enter into this 
bond lightly and for frivolous motives, or from 
just drifting, will be made by fate to pay the 
price. 

Think of it! Two people stand up and swear 
before God to continue to love one another until 
death do them part. They solemnly stand there 
and make vows about an emotion over which 
they have no more control than they have over 
the keeping of the wind in the south. They 
have only control, if they have strong wills, over 
its demonstration. And then in nine cases out 
of ten neither thinks for a moment afterwards, 
of his or her responsibility of trying to make 
possible the observance of these vows, by keep¬ 
ing alight the flame of love in the other’s heart. 
A man utterly disillusions a woman and then 
blames her, not himself, for her ceasing to care 
for him, and being eventually attracted by some 
one else! A woman disgusts or bores a man, 
and then bewails her sad lot, and calls the man 
a brute for being indifferent, and a shameful 
creature for looking elsewhere for consolation! 
In all marriages there is no one to blame or 
praise for unhappiness or happiness but the two 
individuals themselves. It is his fault—or mis- 



THREE THINGS 


45 


fortune—if she no longer cares, and likewise 
hers in the parallel case—and it is owing to the 
weakness of either if outside circumstances have 
been able to interfere. Thus to ensure happiness 
there must be a tremendous sense of personal 
responsibility, and there should be understand¬ 
ing of life and understanding of nature in¬ 
stincts and understanding of sex instincts; and a 
ruthless tearing away of the false values which 
a Victorian age grafted upon religion, narrow¬ 
ing the mind of woman as to man’s needs—and 
narrowing man’s conception of woman’s mental 
capacity. 

No woman must ever forget in her relation 
to man that “ he who pays the piper calls the 
tune,” and in this I am not only speaking liter¬ 
ally of shekels of gold and silver, but of the 
power incorporated in certain personalities; and 
man, if he chose to exert it, has always force 
majeure at his command in the last extremity, 
although in these days of Herculean young 
women he may lose even this in time! 

Before undertaking to play that most diffi¬ 
cult part of wife, every girl ought to ask herself, 
Does she really care for the man enough to 
make her use her intelligence to understand 
him, and to try to keep him loving her? Or if 



46 


THREE THINGS 


she does not personally care enough for him to 
trouble about this—will the situation of her hus¬ 
band in the world satisfy her, and make the 
bondage, unleavened by love, of the care of 
house, servants, and possible children, worth 
while? 

Before undertaking the situation she ought 
to look at every aspect of the case, and question 
herself searchingly upon her own aims and ends, 
and if the actual facts will or will not fit in with 
them. Having made up her mind that for one 
reason or another it is for her happiness to take 
a certain man for her mate, she ought then sedu¬ 
lously to cultivate all the aspects of the condi¬ 
tion which can conduce to peace and to the 
attainment and enjoyment of that end. She 
must not forget that the man has paid her the 
highest honour a man can pay a woman. He 
has selected her to be his life’s companion. He 
proposes in nine cases out of ten, to provide 
her with a home and a position in life, and 
to take upon himself the responsibility of her 
maintenance (when the woman has money of 
her own this question is different naturally). 
But in all cases the man in asking her to marry 
him has shown that something in her—or in 
her possessions—makes her appear worth the 



THREE THINGS 


47 


giving up of his liberty. So she 1 owes him 
just as much as the thing he took her for. If 
for her money, and she knows it is for that, 
and she has been sufficiently humble to accept 
him on those terms—she owes him money. 
If for love—she owes him at least the outside 
observances of love. If he has pretended love 
and it is for some other motive, his Nemesis 
will fall upon himself in the disillusion and con¬ 
tempt he will inspire. But in all cases the wom¬ 
an, through want of intelligence or pure mis¬ 
fortune, has crossed the Rubicon with him; she 
has allowed him to teach her the meaning of 
dual life—she has put it into his power with her 
to create future lives. She cannot, for any 
price or any prayers, recross that fatal stream. 
So for all reasons of common sense—and 
above all, sense of responsibility to the com¬ 
munity—she had better make the best of her 
bargain. 

Likewise, man should pause and think, Is it 
merely because I cannot obtain this woman upon 
any other terms that I am offering her mar¬ 
riage? Have I respect for her? Do I think she 
will bring happiness into my house as well as 
pleasure to my body? Is she suited to my brain 
capacity when I am not exalted by physical emo- 



48 


THREE THINGS 


tion ? Am I going to curb my selfishness and be¬ 
have decently towards her ? 

If he cannot answer these questions satisfac¬ 
torily he may know that he is undertaking a hun- 
dred-to-one chance of peace and happiness. But 
if the physical desire is stronger than all these 
considerations, then he must know and realise 
that whatever happens he mast never blame the 
woman. He has succumbed to the most ma¬ 
terial and alas! the most hideously strong force 
in nature—not because the woman tempted him, 
as it has been the fashion for man to say since 
the days of Adam—but because there is some¬ 
thing in himself which is so weak that it cannot 
listen to the promptings of the spirit when the 
body calls. 

In each and every case it is a man’s duty to be 
kind and courteous to a woman who is his wife. 
He has made her so by his free vows before God 
(because no one can be forced to the altar 
against his absolute will in these days), or he 
has made her so by vows and business agree¬ 
ment, according to the laws of his country, be¬ 
fore the Registrar. In either case he has made 
her his legal wife and the possible mother of his 
children—units unborn who can affect the wel¬ 
fare of his country. He has, then, his great 



THREE THINGS 


49 


duties towards her. If she was a girl, he has 
taken from her that which nothing on earth can 
restore; he has made her into another being. 
He has been instrumental in making her—this 
other human soul—accept responsibilities, and 
he is bound as an honourable man to school him¬ 
self so as to be able to help the mutual happiness 
and peace of their dual existence. And if he 
wishes to be obeyed, loved, and respected, he 
has to look to himself that he inspires obedience, 
love, and respect in his mate. She will not 
experience these feelings to order; and fear 
alone, or some other and lower motive, would 
make her simulate them. Man must not forget 
that nothing simulated can last. Truth alone 
remains at the end of the year. 

No marriage can be certain of continuing 
happy which has been entered into in the spirit 
of taking a lottery ticket. But most marriages 
could be fairly happy if both man and woman 
looked the thing squarely in the face and made 
up their minds that they would run together in 
harness as two well-trained carriage horses, both 
knowing of the pole, both pulling at the collar 
and not overstraining the traces, both taking 
pride in their high stepping and their unity 
of movement. How much more dignified than 



50 


THREE THINGS 


to make a pitiful exhibition of incompatibility 
like two wild creatures kicking and plunging, 
and finally upsetting the vehicle they had agreed 
to draw? 

I would like to discuss now the problem of 
whether or not marriage could be made happy 
no matter how it starts, by using common sense, 
but the deep interest of the whole subject has 
made my pen already cover too much space and 
I must refrain in this chapter. 

Only, men and women who read this, do not 
pass it by, but stop and think before you plunge, 
through the giving and the taking of a wedding 
ring, into happiness or misery. 



IV 


AFTER MARRIAGE 

C ONSIDERING the instability of all our 
tastes and desires and the almost total 
want of personal discipline which pre¬ 
vails in the present day, it is really remarkable 
that the legal marriage goes on even as well as 
it does!—but that the state could be much hap¬ 
pier is patent to any understanding, and it may 
be interesting to look at one or two aspects of 
it, and see from whence comes the discord. A 
woman enters into matrimony for various rea¬ 
sons, but, in the majority of cases in England 
and America at least, it is because she is, or fan¬ 
cies she is, in love with the man at the time. He, 
therefore, if this is so, starts with an enormous 
power over her, which, if he chooses to keep it, 
will enable him to turn their future life in any 
way he will, because the greatest desire even of 
the most strong-minded and domineering woman 
when in love is to please the man. A woman 
only becomes indifferent as to whether or no she 
51 



52 


THREE THINGS 


is doing this when she no longer cares. There¬ 
fore, it is the man’s business to keep her in this 
state if he wants his home to be happy. The 
first thing for him to realise is that she cannot 
remain in love with him by her own will, any 
more than she can cease to love him by her own 
will—these states are produced in her by some¬ 
thing in himself. And if he discontinues using 
the arts and attractions which awakened her love, 
he cannot expect it to continue its demonstration, 
any more than a kettle will go on boiling if the 
heat beneath is removed from it. This argu¬ 
ment, of course, applies to both sexes. Unfor¬ 
tunately, in a great many cases of marriage, the 
simple attraction of sex has been the unconscious 
motive which has caused the man to enter the 
bond, and naturally, when he has gained his 
wishes he ceases to endeavour consciously to at¬ 
tract the woman. And then one of two things 
happens; either she grows to love him more for 
a time, because of that contrariness in human be¬ 
ings which always puts abnormal value upon the 
thing which is slipping out of reach—or she her¬ 
self becomes indifferent; and then it is a mere 
chance if they both, or either of them, possess 
character and a sense of duty as to how the mar¬ 
riage goes along. We will take the case of a 



THREE THINGS 


53 


union when both parties are in love when they 
start, and really desire that their marriage should 
remain happy. Each ought to decide that he or 
she will do his or her uttermost to continue to 
put forth those charms which enchanted the 
mate before the ceremony. No one would ex¬ 
pect the bloom to remain upon grapes if he care¬ 
lessly rubbed it off, but both man and woman are 
extraordinarily surprised and disgusted when 
they find their partners are no longer in love with 
them, and at once blame them for fickleness, in¬ 
stead of examining themselves to see what 
caused this ceasing to care—what they did—or 
omitted to do —which made themselves no lon¬ 
ger able to call forth love from their mates. 
And until it can be grasped that all emotion of 
love is produced by something consciously or un¬ 
consciously possessed by the other person—and 
that it is not in the power of the individual to 
order himself to feel it, or not to feel it, but 
that only the demonstration of the state is in his 
power—unions will go on with mutual recrimi¬ 
nations and the hitting of the heads against a 
stone wall. 

Some natures are naturally fickle and unstable 
—and no matter how good and sweet the part¬ 
ner may be, they break away. These cases are 



54 


THREE THINGS 


misfortunes, but in analysing the facts the actual 
responsibility cannot be laid at the doors of such 
people, since they could not by will have kept 
the sensation of love for their partners, any 
more than by will they could have ceased to care 
for them. They could only by will have been 
able to control the expression of their feelings. 
I seem to be reiterating this point to the verge 
of tiresomeness, but it is so vitally important 
to understand, because its non-comprehension 
produces such injustice. If John by his will 
were able to make himself remain in love with 
Mary, and failed to do so, then she might have 
a right to blame him because he had sworn that 
he would at the altar. But as he cannot com¬ 
mand his actual emotion, she can only blame 
him for infidelity of the body, since of that, at 
least, it is possible he could be master. But, 
alas! Mary very seldom realises this, and re¬ 
proaches John for ceasing to feel loving towards 
her! which is as sensible on her part as to re¬ 
proach him for the skies pouring rain. John, 
on his side, in like case does the same thing, be¬ 
cause he also has not understood the truth. A 
valuable point for both to keep in remembrance 
is that the attraction of sex is the basis of all 
“ being in love.” However ennobled the emo- 



THREE THINGS 


55 


tion may become afterwards, it always starts 
with that. (This fact is explained and elabo¬ 
rated in the conversation between the Russian 
and the Clergyman in my story, “ The Point of 
View.”) If common sense is used in thinking 
about this matter, it will be seen that if this was 
not the foundation of “ being in love ” the emo¬ 
tion would be calm, and like that of brother and 
sister. So, admitting that this is the foundation, 
it can be understood how important a part it 
plays in the happiness of two people bound to¬ 
gether by law for life, and how important it is 
to the woman to endeavor to continue to make 
herself lovable in the eyes of the man—and vice 
versa—it is of supreme importance to whichever 
of them cares the most. When the thing starts 
equally, the man nearly always cools the soonest, 
because of his fundamental instincts, and the 
force of satiation. He then probably goes on 
liking his wife—perhaps he admires and respects 
her intellect, but the thrill which used to come 
when her hand even touched his hand is no longer 
there, and he only feels emotion towards her 
when he is in the mood, which would make him 
feel it towards any woman who happened to be 
there at the moment. And just in the measure 
that he was passionate towards his wife, so he 



56 


THREE THINGS 


will be the easy or difficult prey of a new emotion. 
And if this aspect of the case distresses the wom¬ 
an, she must look to her guns—so to speak—and 
use the whole of her intelligence to regain her 
hold over his affection. She will not improve 
matters by lamenting or reproaching the man. 
If it does not distress her, then she can congratu¬ 
late herself that a time of peace has come! 

A woman must face the fact that man is a 
totally different creature from herself, governed 
by other instincts, which can be best explained 
by realising them in animals in their boldest 
nature aspect, i.e. a male dog at times will tear 
down any barrier that is within his personal 
strength to enable him to get to his mate, and a 
female dog will fight through unheard-of ob¬ 
stacles to reach her puppies. Here is a plain 
illustration of the different ruling original in¬ 
stincts in animals, and human beings are only the 
highest form of animal, given by God a more 
developed soul and a choice of action, but still 
influenced by fundamental nature instincts, 
which, beneath all the training of civilisation, 
unconsciously still direct their actions and affect 
their point of view. Civilisation, on its good 
side, teaches man to overcome his bodily desires 
and to keep them in check, but not to eliminate 



THREE THINGS 


57 


them, to do which would militate against the 
Creator’s scheme of things. Civilisation on its 
evil side has frequently perverted woman’s natu¬ 
ral instinct, so that in numbers of cases the won¬ 
derful devotion of the animal to her young has 
become numb in her, or dead. If only all women 
would bravely face these facts of nature instincts 
in themselves and in men, they would approach 
marriage with much broader-minded views, and 
would have a much greater chance of happiness, 
because they would realise that they must be 
lenient to man in the matter of his fidelity to 
them; and if man realised these instincts, he 
would enter marriage knowing he must make a 
fight with nature to keep the vows he has sworn, 
and so he would be on his guard against the 
first inclination to stray, instead of an easy prey 
to it. For, as it is, there is a recognised unwritten 
law among most men that honour must always 
be kept with “ the other woman,” but that it is 
not necessary with a wife. A man’s honour to¬ 
wards a woman is only certain of holding with 
his inclinations—that is: A married to B will be 
unfaithful to her with C—which is technically 
dishonour. He will not consider that, but will 
tell any lie to protect C and stick to her, because 
his sense of honour has gone with his inclination. 



58 


THREE THINGS 


He feels he must “ never give away C to B,” 
although he experiences no qualm in having 
already tacitly “ given away ” B to C, by his 
very part of taking C for his mistress. B is 
also a woman, but only his wife! He has not 
been the least aware of it, but his sense of honour 
has followed his inclination, in a way it would 
never do over a business arrangement with 
another man. To give a parallel case in a busi¬ 
ness arrangement: A makes a bargain with B that 
he will deal with him alone; he then finds he likes 
the goods of C better than those of B—but no 
honest tradesman would think of breaking his 
contract even secretly with B and dealing with 
C, for, if he did, he would know himself that 
he was dishonest, and that all his fellows who 
knew he had done this thing would despise and 
ostracise him. But a man when deceiving his 
wife not only generally feels no shame himself, 
but knows his male friends will probably not 
think the worse of him for it. There is not the 
slightest use in arguing about these facts, any 
more than, as I said in my first paper upon mar¬ 
riage, there is in arguing about fundamental in¬ 
stincts, and it would be well for women to re¬ 
alise this elastic, unwritten law of honour in 
men towards them, and so not expect, at the 



THREE THINGS 


59 


present state of man’s evolution, that they will 
receive anything different. They must never for¬ 
get that this adjustable sense of honour springs 
from the same fundamental male instinct we 
spoke of—and therefore cannot be turned round 
by women and applied to their own cases, be¬ 
cause the same instincts do not come into force 
with them. Woman must always remember that 
man is conquering primitive nature in being 
faithful to her at all 9 and therefore she ought, 
if she desires that he shall be so, to look to her 
own every point of attraction to make it possible 
(if not easy!) for him to fulfil her desire. I must 
reiterate again that it is wiser to remember that 
it is civilisation alone (civilisation embracing 
development of moral sense, and religious sense, 
and the force of custom) which keeps him from 
straying whenever he feels inclined, and that all 
she can do to prevent it is to redouble her own 
attractions, and to help the women of the future 
by instilling into her own sons’ minds the idea 
that, as marriage is an ideal and not a natural 
state } the man who enters into it must be pre¬ 
pared to school himself to live up to an ideal, 
and control his vagrant emotions. To teach the 
boys a new and higher sense of honour is the 
only possible way to alter matters, as a grown 



60 


THREE THINGS 


man is seldom changed. In marriage, both 
partners must understand that they are under¬ 
taking to do a most difficult thing in vowing to 
live together and love for ever! Whichever 
cares the most will have to use intelligence to 
keep the other—and if it is the woman who is 
unfortunate enough to occupy this position, she 
generally absolutely sacrifices herself to gratify 
the man’s smallest wish, and so makes herself 
cheap. She should use her wits and keep a firm 
hand over herself so as not to let herself become 
in his eyes of no importance. 

Selfishness is another basic instinct of man, 
caused because he was originally and unques¬ 
tionably Lord of Creation, and only in the 
countries where men are in the majority 
are the greater number of them unselfish even 
now to woman. In England, where women are 
in the majority, selfishness in every male child 
is fostered from his cradle. So women must 
not indiscriminately condemn every man as 
being selfish, as though it was his personal 
fault; they must look to the cause, and condemn 
that if they want to, or, better still, try to eradi¬ 
cate it in the future by influencing their own 
sons to desire to be chivalrous and unselfish to 
the woman of the next generation. In this way 



THREE THINGS 


61 


they would help to raise the standard of honour 
and responsibility in humanity in general. 

The most selfish man is not often selfish to 
the woman whom he is in love with. While she 
excites these emotions, however he shows his 
cloven hoof to the rest of the household, he will 
not show it to her. And even when he ceases to 
be in love, if his wife has filled him with respect 
and admiration for her, he will hardly dare to 
exhibit his bad qualities. You will see a man 
with the most odious character showing only the 
nicest ways to some particular person, when he 
wishes to stand well with that person. There¬ 
fore, to deal successfully with a selfish man, it 
ought to be obvious to a woman that the only 
effectual method to employ is to seek to create 
in his mind the desire to please her. If only men 
could understand that to be kind and courteous 
to their wives in the home would give them 
much greater liberty abroad, they would greatly 
add to the happiness of most marriages. It is 
her daily life which matters to a woman, because, 
as a rule, her brain is not developed enough to 
be looking ahead to the great questions of the 
day; and to have joy in her home is her earthly 
paradise. 

Nearly all love marriages begin with too 



62 


THREE THINGS 


much emotion and too little self-control, and so 
become shipwrecked upon the rocks of satiety 
and indifference. Young people undertake the 
most risky experiment in the world as lightly 
and unpreparedly as they would go on a summer 
holiday! 

It must be understood that all these argu¬ 
ments are used from the standpoint of suppos¬ 
ing the married pair start with love. When 
they do not, but are entering into a marriage 
simply from expediency, their minds are gener¬ 
ally calm, they have no illusions, and are there¬ 
fore free to use that judgment which they would 
employ over any business affair of their lives, 
and often, therefore, they get along very well. 
But these cannot be considered as ideal mar¬ 
riages, or likely to produce highly endowed 
children. And in England, at least, such 
unions are the exception and not the rule. 

Broadly speaking, to make any marriage 
happy each partner ought deliberately to use 
every atom of his or her intelligence to think 
out the best method to live in sympathy with 
the mate, and should not simply be set upon 
expressing his or her own personality, regard¬ 
less of the other. Chain any two animals to¬ 
gether and watch the result! Nothing will 



THREE THINGS 


63 


teach what marriage means more effectually. 
It is only when the two poor beasts are of one 
mind that their chains do not gall. But human 
beings are above animals in this, that they have 
wills and talents and aspirations, and can judge 
of good and evil, so that their happiness or 
misery is practically in their own hands, and to 
quote an immortal remark of a French writer— 
“ If as much thought were put into the making 
a success of marriage as is put into the mixing 
of a salad, there would be no unhappy unions! ” 



V 


SHOULD DIVORCE BE MADE EASIER? 

H OWEVER much some of us may feel 
that divorce can never touch our per¬ 
sonal lives, at least the question of it 
in regard to the nation must always be interest¬ 
ing; and now, with the Majority and Minority 
report of the Royal Commission still ringing 
in every one’s ears, it seems a moment to suggest 
some points of view upon the matter. To 
those people entirely influenced by religion as it 
is expounded from the laws laid down by the 
Church, there can be nothing to say, because, 
in the first place, their belief in the infallibility 
of these laws and the influence of their pastors 
ought certainly to keep them from sinning at 
all; and if sinned against, ought to enable them 
to bear the pain without murmur. But there 
are a vast number of our countrymen and women 
who do not consider the dogmas of religion and 
are not entirely imbued with respect for the laws 
of the Church, while nevertheless being good 
64 


THREE THINGS 


65 


and honest citizens. It depends upon each per¬ 
son’s point of view. 

In this paper, as in my former ones upon 
Marriage, I want only to take the subject from 
the standpoint of common sense, while with rev¬ 
erence I admit that if the moral conscience could 
be awakened by any religious convictions what¬ 
ever, so that it would keep each individual from 
sinning, that would be the true solution of the 
problem. But, while seeking to enforce its laws 
in opposition to the laws of the State, the teach¬ 
ing of the Church seems somehow not to have 
been able to retain much hold over the general 
conscience which, ever since the first secular law 
came into being, has availed itself of the relief 
so afforded to free itself from galling shackles. 
The point, then, to look at sensibly is not 
whether divorce is right or wrong in itself, but 
what sort of effect the making of it easier or 
less easy would have upon the nation. There 
does not seem to be the slightest use in applying 
any arguments to the subject which do not take 
into consideration the immeasurable upheaval in 
ideas, manner of living, relaxation of personal 
discipline, and loss of religious control which 
have taken place since the last reform was made. 
The luxury of existence, the rapid movement 



66 


THREE THINGS 


from place to place permitted by motor-cars, 
the emancipation of women, the general sup¬ 
posed necessity of indulging in amusements, have 
so altered all the notions of life, and so excited 
and encouraged interest in sex relationships, that 
the old idea of stability and loyalty in marriage 
is shaken to its foundations. The temptations 
for people to err are now a thousand-fold 
greater than they were fifty years ago, and very 
few young people are brought up with ideas of 
stern self-control at all. This being the case, it 
would seem that the only rational standpoint to 
view the question of divorce reform or divorce 
restriction from is the one which gives the vastest 
outlook over each side’s eventuality, realising 
present conditions and tendencies to be as they 
are, and not as they were, or ought to be. The 
forces which produced these conditions are not 
on the decline, but, if anything, on the increase, 
and must therefore be reckoned with and not 
ignored. What are they likely to bring in the 
future ? Still greater intolerance of all restraint, 
still more desire for change? And if this is so, 
will it have been wiser to have made the law 
harder or more lenient? That is the question 
we shall soon, as a people, have to try to decide. 

In setting out to look calmly at the subject 



THREE THINGS 


67 


of divorce, no good can be arrived at by study¬ 
ing isolated cases, inasmuch as surely there can 
be no divided opinion upon the fact of the 
cruelty of some of them, and the certainty of 
their betterment by divorce. The one and only 
aim to keep in view is what will be best for the 
whole people, and no other aspect should ever 
influence the true citizen in making up his mind 
upon so vital a question. Thus surely we ought 
each one of us to ask himself or herself to look 
ahead, and try to imagine what would be the 
result to our nation of relaxing the severity of 
the present divorce law—or of increasing it. Of 
the effects of its present administration we can 
judge, so it ought to be no impossible task to 
work from that backwards or forwards. 

But to look at any subject dispassionately, 
without the prejudice of religion or personal 
feeling, is one of the hardest things to accom¬ 
plish. These two forces always make people 
take views as unchangeable as the laws of the 
Medes and Persians, regardless of totally al¬ 
tered conditions and requirements of mankind. 
I hold a brief for neither side, and in this paper 
I only want to suggest some points of view so 
as to help, perhaps, some others to look at the 
matter with justice, as I have tried to look at 



68 


THREE THINGS 


it myself. It would seem to me that divorce as 
a means of ridding oneself of one partner merely 
to be happier with another must surely always 
be wrong, because it must entail the degradation 
of conscious personal motive, in the knowledge 
that one had taken advantage of a law to gain 
an end, and to help one to break a vow solely 
for one’s own gratification. The enormous re¬ 
sponsibility of so taking fate into their own 
hands would frighten most people, if they gave 
themselves time to think—but they do not. 
Nine-tenths of them have no compunction in 
breaking vows, because they do not realise that 
by making them they have connected themselves 
with currents and assumed responsibilities the 
consequences of which to themselves they cannot 
possibly eventually avoid, no matter how they 
may try temporarily to evade them. 

It would seem to me that divorce for the rich 
and educated should be made as difficult as pos¬ 
sible, and the pleas investigated mercilessly, to 
discover if any advantage has been taken of 
legal quibbles for ulterior ends; but that the 
judge should grant decrees instantly when habit¬ 
ual drunkenness, madness, or anything which de¬ 
grades and lowers a household or community is 
proved against the defendant. It would seem to 



THREE THINGS 


69 


me that divorces for the poor should be facili¬ 
tated in every way, if this difference to those of 
the rich could possibly be accomplished, so that 
the hideous cruelty and encouragement of vice 
(cases of which are so admirably set forth in 
the pamphlets issued by the Divorce Law Re¬ 
form Union) could be summarily dealt with, 
and relief and peace conferred upon the innocent 
party. Because the lives of the poor are too 
filled with work to be as easily influenced by 
personal emotion as the lives of the rich, and 
the lower level of their education and standard 
of manners admits of such far greater unkind¬ 
ness and brutality in their actions than in a 
higher class; and thus they are the more entitled 
by justice to relief and protection than the highly 
endowed and developed section of society who 
can better take care of themselves. It seems to 
me to be a crying injustice that the law of 
divorce can only be administered by paying 
exorbitant fees for it; and that if the separa¬ 
tion of two human beings who are admittedly 
bound together by law can be accomplished 
by law and that the breaking of the marriage 
vow is a sin against the law, then the poorest 
in the land have an absolute right that this 
law should be put into execution for them with- 



70 


THREE THINGS 


out special payment, just as they have now a 
right to the Law’s working for them to catch 
offenders who steal their goods, or who break 
business contracts with them. It would seem 
that this is a frightful case of there being one 
law for the rich and one for the poor, and that 
it is a blot upon the boasted equity and fairness 
of English justice. How glorious it would be 
if all lawyers could be remunerated equally 
by the State! It would do away with a thriv¬ 
ing industry perhaps, but it might be a great 
aid to real justice being arrived at, and not as 
things now are, when whoever can pay the 
cleverest pleader has the best chance of winning 
the case. But to get back to the views of 
divorce! 

It would seem to me that the vital and essen¬ 
tial question all persons wishing for divorce 
ought to ask themselves is, “ What is my motive 
in desiring this freedom? ” They should search 
their very souls for the truth. If it is because 
the position has not only become intolerable to 
themselves, but is a menace to their children or 
society, then they should know that they are act¬ 
ing rightly in trying their utmost to be free; but 
if the real reason is that they may legally indulge 
in a new passion, then they may be certain that 



THREE THINGS 


71 


if they take advantage of a law designed for 
the benefit of a race, and use it to their own 
baser ends, they are invoking most dangerous 
forces to militate against their own eventual un¬ 
happiness. No one who is in a position where 
his or her good or bad example will be followed 
has any right to indulge in any personal feel¬ 
ings to the influencing in a harmful way of his 
or her public actions. This is the true meaning 
of that finest of all old sayings, “Noblesse 
oblige.” To me it would seem to be a frightful 
sin for a man or woman for personal motives 
to degrade an order or a community. 

So this is the standpoint I would suggest 
every one looking at divorce from: “ Will the 
thing bring good or harm?—not to me who am 
only a unit, but to that wider circle of my family 
and my country?” And if common sense as¬ 
sures him or her that no good can come of it, 
then the true citizen should not hesitate to bear 
the pain of refraining. 

It would seem to me to be wrong to allow 
any personal feeling at all to influence one to di¬ 
vorce, no matter what the cruelty of the circum¬ 
stances or the justice of the grievance one had, 
if by so doing the children of the marriage were 
injured in any way f or that the prestige of an 



72 


THREE THINGS 


order or the honour of a family were lowered 
by one's action; but that were the husband or 
wife a shame and degradation to the children or 
the family, the individual would be entirely justi¬ 
fied in divorcing, and would be helping the good 
of the State by preventing the guilty and debased 
partner from committing further harm. Com¬ 
mon sense is always the truest wisdom, but it has 
often unhappily had to be cloaked and hampered 
either by spiritual superstition, prejudice, or ig¬ 
norance. So that when a flagrant case which cor¬ 
rupts a whole neighbourhood cries aloud to com¬ 
mon sense to remove it by divorce, there are 
found hundreds of good and worthy people to 
oppose this on the ground that the Church does 
not sanction such proceeding! If the State re¬ 
ligion administered by the Church cannot incul¬ 
cate higher principles in its members, so as to 
prevent them from sinning, it would obviously 
seem to be more fair to allow the statesmen and 
sociologists to have a free hand in their attempt 
to better the morality of England than for the 
Church to use the vast influence it still possesses 
to the stultifying of these plans. The homely 
proverb of the proof of the pudding being in 
the eating seems to be plainly shown here. The 
religious teaching has failed to influence the peo- 



THREE THINGS 


73 


pie to refrain from sin and to discountenance 
divorce, proving that its method of imparting 
knowledge and obtaining influence over the 
modern mind is no longer effectual, and common 
sense would suggest changing the method to en¬ 
sure the desired end. There is a story told of a 
French regiment in the early days of conscrip¬ 
tion. A certain size of boots had been decided 
upon for recruits, and this decision had worked 
very well when the young men were drawn from 
the town, where the feet were comparatively 
small, but when countryside youths became the 
majority, the boots they were given were an 
agony to them, and constant complaints were the 
result, with, however, no redress. Omnipotent 
head-quarters had decided the size! And 
that was the end of it! And it was not 
until nearly the whole regiment was in hos¬ 
pital with sore feet that it entered the brain of 
the officials that it might be wiser for France to 
regulate the size of the boots of the regiment 
to the feet of the wearers. Why, then, cannot 
the Church devote all its brain and force to 
evolving some new form of teaching which will, 
so to speak, “fit the feet of the wearers’’? 
Then all questions of divorce could be settled by 
noble and exalted feeling and desire to do right 



74 


THREE THINGS 


and elevate the nation. But meanwhile, with 
the growth and encouragement of individualism, 
every little unit is giving forth his personal view 
(as I am doing in this paper!), perhaps many of 
them without the slightest faculty for looking 
ahead, or knowledge of how to make deductions 
from past events, or other countries’ experiences; 
and the Church is preaching one thing, and the 
State another, the Majority report taking a cer¬ 
tain view, and the Minority a different one— 
and we are all at sea, and the supreme issue of it 
all seems to be fogged. 

An enormous section of the public, and almost 
all women it would seem, are of opinion that 
divorce should be granted for the same reason 
to women as it is now to men. But surely those 
who hold this view cannot understand that fun¬ 
damental difference in the instincts of the sexes 
which I tried to show as forcibly as I could in 
my former articles upon Marriage. Infidelity in 
man cannot be nearly such a degradation to his 
own soul as infidelity in woman must be to hers, 
because he is following natural impulses and she 
is following grafted ones. A woman must feel 
degraded in her body and soul when she gives 
herself to two men at the same time, a husband 
and a lover; but a man, when he strays, if it has 



THREE THINGS 


75 


any moral effect upon him at all, probably merely 
feels some twinges on account of breaking his 
word, and the fear of being found out. The 
actual infidelity cannot degrade him as much as 
it generally degrades a woman, and may be only 
the yielding to strong temptation at a given mo¬ 
ment, and have no bearing upon the kind home 
treatment he accords his wife and children, or 
the tenor of his domestic life. The eventuality 
of what this law would bring should be looked 
at squarely. And it is rather a pitiful picture to 
think of the entire happiness of a home being 
upset because a wife, without judgment or the 
faculty of making deductions, discovering a 
single instance of illicit behaviour in her hus¬ 
band, sees fit to, and is enabled by law, to di¬ 
vorce him. It may be argued that the fear of 
this would make him mend his -ways; but did 
fear ever curb strong natural instincts for long? 
—instincts as strong as hunger, or thirst, or de¬ 
sire to sleep? Fear could only curb such for a 
time, and then intelligence would suggest some 
new and cunning method of deceit, so as to ob¬ 
tain the desired end. The only possible way to 
ensure fidelity in a man is by influencing him to 
zvish to remain faithful, either by fond love for 
the woman or deep religious conviction or moral 



76 


THREE THINGS 


opinion that not to do so would degrade his 
soul. The accomplishment of this end would 
seem to be either in the hands of the woman 
or in the teaching of the Church—and cannot 
be brought about by law. Law can only punish 
offenders; it cannot force them to keep from 
sin. When a man is unfaithful habitually, it 
amounts to cruelty, and even with the present 
law the woman can obtain relief on that ground. 

In looking at a single case of infidelity in a 
woman, a man would be wise to question him¬ 
self to see if he has not been in some measure 
responsible for it—by his own unkindness or 
indifference, and in not realising her nature; and 
if his conscience tells him he is to blame, then 
he ought never to be hard upon the woman. He 
ought also very seriously to consider the circum¬ 
stances, and whether or no his children or his 
family will be hurt by the scandal of public sever¬ 
ance, as they should be more important to him 
than his personal feelings. Tolerance and com¬ 
mon sense should always hold wounded vanity 
and prejudice in check. How often one sees 
happy and united old couples who in the merid¬ 
ian of their lives have each looked elsewhere, 
but have had the good taste and judgment to 
make no public protest about the matter, and 



THREE THINGS 


77 


thus have given each other time to regain com¬ 
mand of vagrant fancies and return to the fold 
of convention! 

With so many different individual views upon 
the right and wrong of divorce, it is impossible 
for either side—the divorce reform or the di¬ 
vorce restriction supporters—to state a wholly 
convincing case against the other. The only pos¬ 
sible way to view the general question is, as I 
said before, to keep the mind fixed upon the main 
issue, that of what may possibly be best for the 
nation f having regard to the ever-augmenting 
forces of luxury and liberty and democracy and 
want of discipline which are holding rule. 

Lack of space prevents me from trying to 
touch upon the numerous other moot points in 
divorce, so I will only plead that, when each per¬ 
son has come to a definite and common-sense con¬ 
clusion, unclouded by sentiment or prejudice, he 
or she may not hesitate to proclaim his or her 
conviction aloud, so that the law of the land may 
be reorganised to the needs of present-day hu¬ 
manity and help it to rise to the highest fulfil¬ 
ment. 



VI 


THE RESPONSIBILITY OF 
MOTHERHOOD 

4 S far as the necessities for it go in the ani- 
r\ nal world, nearly all animals have a very 
trong sense of the responsibility of mother¬ 
hood—unless they have become over-civilised, 
or live under unnatural circumstances. A strik¬ 
ing example of the consequences of the latter 
state of being is shown by “ Barbara,” that 
thrillingly attractive Polar bear in the Zoo, 
whose twelfth and thirteenth infants were only 
the other day condemned to follow their 
brothers and sisters to an early grave through 
their parents’—and especially their mother’s— 
gross stupidity about their bringing-up and wel¬ 
fare. And we who are human animals, given by 
God conscious souls, ought to realise the fact 
that civilisation and pampered environment have 
enormously blunted our natural instincts in this 
respect, just as they have Barbara’s, and so we 
should try to restore the loss by consciously cul- 
78 


THREE THINGS 


79 


tivating our understanding of the subject and 
deliberately realising the tremendous responsi¬ 
bilities we incur by bringing children into the 
world. When we think about the matter quietly, 
the magnitude of it is almost overwhelming, and 
yet there are hundreds and thousands of women 
who never give it a serious thought! They 
have some vague idea that to have children is 
the inevitable result of matrimony, and that 
if they pay others to feed and clothe the 
little creatures, and give them some instruc¬ 
tion in the way that they should go, their own 
part of the affair is finished. That, until a child 
is grown to an age to judge for itself, the parents 
will be held responsible for their stewardship of 
its body and soul at the great tribunal of God 
does not strike them, and it is only perhaps when 
the boomerang of their neglect has returned to 
them and blasted them with calamity that they 
become conscious of their past negligence. 

In this article I do not propose to touch upon 
the father’s side of the question, important as 
it is, but shall confine myself to the mother’s, 
because this has always been one of my deep 
preoccupations to think out the meaning of it 
all, and how best to fulfil the trust. Obviously 
the sole aim of true motherhood is the moral 



80 


THREE THINGS 


and physical welfare of the child, and to accom¬ 
plish this end we should understand that it is 
quite impossible to lay down any set rule, or 
go by any recognised and unchangeable method. 
For in one age certain precepts are taught which 
are obsolete in the next, because science and the 
improvement of mechanical aids to well-being 
advance with such giant strides. But if we keep 
the end in view it is simple enough to see that 
common sense and discrimination, unclouded by 
custom or sentiment or superstition, can accom¬ 
plish miracles. The circumstances of the par¬ 
ticular case must always govern the method to 
be used in order to obtain the same given end, 
no matter what the station in life of the parents. 
Thus every mother, from the humblest to the 
highest, ought to think out how she can best 
procure her child moral and physical welfare 
according to her means. 

In the lives of the very poor the only thing 
to be done for the betterment of the understand¬ 
ing of the responsibility of motherhood seems to 
be to teach the simplest rules of hygiene which 
animals know by instinct, and after that for the 
State to take care of the children as much as 
possible. For this very strange fact is in opera¬ 
tion, namely, that while Nature leaves an insati- 



THREE THINGS 


81 


able desire to create life, she allows civilisation 
to rob human beings of instinctive knowledge 
of how to preserve it in its earliest stages, and 
that the human mother is of all creation the 
only one entirely at the mercy of imparted 
knowledge as regards the proper treatment of 
her offspring. 

Into the conception of the duties of mother¬ 
hood among the very poor we cannot go in this 
short paper—the subject is too vast—so we must 
confine ourselves to discussing those of a higher 
class where, having the means to do well, the 
responsibilities are far greater. I want, if I 
can, to open a window, as it were, upon the out¬ 
look of the general responsibility of motherhood 
and let each class apply what it gathers of the 
meaning, if it wishes, to its own circumstances. 

It is the aim and end of a thing which is of 
sole importance; in this case the aim and end 
being the happiness and welfare of the child. 
And that is the point which I want to harp upon, 
the necessity of keeping the goal in view and of 
not wandering off into side issues. It was for 
the sake of the end, namely, obtaining happi¬ 
ness, that I tried to show in my articles upon 
marriage how common sense might secure this 
desired state. And it was to the end of what 



82 


THREE THINGS 


might be best for England that I pleaded for 
the necessity of using fair judgment over the 
question of facilitating or restricting divorce. 
And it is now to the end of helping the coming 
race to be fine and true that I want to talk about 
the responsibility of motherhood. 

Let us take the subject from the very begin¬ 
ning. 


PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES 

The thought for the child should commence 
with the first knowledge of its coming birth. 
A tremendous control of self, and emotions, and 
foolish habits, and a stern command of nerves 
should be the prospective mother’s constant 
effort, as science has proved that all pre-natal 
influences have such powerful effect upon the 
child; and, surely, if any woman stopped to 
think of the colossal responsibility she has un¬ 
dertaken in having become the vehicle to bring 
a soul from God to earth, she would at least 
try to employ as much intelligence in the fulfil¬ 
ment of her obligation as she puts into succeed¬ 
ing in any of the worldly pursuits in life. Think 
of the hours some women spend in painful dis¬ 
cipline by going through exercises to keep their 
figures young and their faces beautiful—the mas- 



THREE THINGS 


83 


sage! the cures! and the “ rests ” they take to 
this end—but who let their waiting time for 
motherhood be passed in a sort of relaxation of 
all control—getting into tempers, indulging in 
nerves, over-smoking, or tiring themselves out 
with excitement without one thought for the 
coming little one, except as an inevitable neces¬ 
sity or a shocking nuisance. During this period 
the wise woman ought to study such matters as 
heredity. She ought to view the characteristics 
of her own and her husband’s families, and then 
firmly determine to counteract the objectionable 
features in them by making her own mind dwell 
upon only good and fine attributes for her child. 
She ought to try to keep herself in perfect health 
by using common sense, and, above all, she 
should determine to fight and conquer the nerv¬ 
ous emotions which more or less beset all 
women at such time. She ought to encourage 
happy and loving relations with her husband, 
and try in every way to be in herself good and 
gentle and brave. It is the most important mo¬ 
ment in the whole of a woman’s life for self-dis¬ 
cipline, because of the prodigious results of all 
her moods and actions upon the child, and yet, 
as I said before, it is one of the commonest 
sights to see a woman who at other times is a 



84 


THREE THINGS 


very good sort of creature, simply letting herself 
go and becoming an insupportable bore to her 
husband and the whole house, with her perverse¬ 
ness and her nerves and her fads. 

If they could analyse causes, what bitter re¬ 
proaches many poor little diseased, neurotic 
children might truly throw at their irrespon¬ 
sible mothers for endowing them with these 
evils before birth. 

THE CASE OF TWO WOMEN 

When the child is born—again it is only its 
welfare which should be thought of by the 
mother, and not what custom or family opinion 
would enforce. To me it seems that no mother 
ought to undertake any of the so-called duties 
of a mother that she is incapable of performing 
to the advantage of the child, who would be 
better cared for by employing highly trained 
service. She should only force herself to do her 
best in uncongenial tasks if circumstances make 
it impossible for her to obtain a better nurse or 
teacher for her infant than she herself could 
be. She must constantly keep the end in view, 
so as to stamp out prejudice and out-of-date 
methods; especially she should guard against 



THREE THINGS 


85 


making the child suffer for her own fads and 
experiments. I believe I shall better illustrate 
what I mean by “ keeping the end in view ” if 
I give a few concrete examples, instead of trying 
to explain in the abstract. 

Here is one example. 

There were two women of my acquaintance, 
one of whom had an exquisitely obedient, per¬ 
fectly brought-up little girl of five who was her 
constant thought, and a baby of two months. 
This mother could afford an excellent nurse, and 
left all the physical care of the infant to her, 
concentrating her intelligence upon wise general 
supervision, and upon the training of the little 
girl whose dawning character was her study. 
The other mother had two very ill-behaved, 
disobedient children of five and seven, and a 
baby of three months. She spent her time wash¬ 
ing and dressing the infant, fussing over it and 
caressing it from morning to night, and inter¬ 
fering with the paid nurse, who well knew her 
duties. She was also quite indifferent to her 
appearance, and wearied her husband to death 
with her over-domesticity. But she felt herself 
to be a perfect and affectionate wife and mother, 
and strongly censured the other woman when she 
admitted that she had never washed or dressed 



86 


THREE THINGS 


her baby, and was even rather nervous when she 
held it in case she should hurt its tender neck 
and head. But the proof that the first woman 
was a true and good guardian of God’s gift 
to her was in the finely trained little girl, and 
the proof of the second woman’s undevelop¬ 
ment from the animal stage was in her concen¬ 
trated and, in the circumstances, unnecessary 
preoccupation with the infant, to the entire 
neglect of the character training of the elder 
children. Had they both been so poor that actual 
physical care of the infants devolved solely upon 
each mother, the first would have used all her 
intelligence to discover the sensible and common- 
sense way to carry out her duties, and the second 
would have continued using any obsolete method 
she had been accustomed to, while she lavished 
silly fuss and attention upon the baby. 

FORE-THOUGHT FOR BEAUTY 

The first woman had the end in view; the 
second did not look ahead at all, but simply 
indulged her own selfishly animal instincts, with¬ 
out a thought of what would be best for her 
child. 

The apparently “ good ” mothers might be 



THREE THINGS 


87 


divided into two classes—the animal mothers 
and the spiritual mothers. The animal mothers 
are better than indifferent, and therefore ab¬ 
normal, mothers, but are far below spiritual 
mothers, for they, the animal mothers, are 
only obeying natural instincts which have hap¬ 
pily survived in them, but obeying them only 
as animals do, without reason or conscience. 
And the spiritual mother uses her common sense 
and tries to secure the continual welfare of her 
child, looking ahead for all eventualities, from 
matters of health to personal appearance, as well 
as character training and soul elevation. 

Numbers of women think that if they follow 
out the same lines of bringing-up for their chil¬ 
dren as are the recognised ones employed by 
their class they have fully done their duty, and 
that if the children do not profit by the stereo¬ 
typed lessons of religion and behaviour that 
have been imparted to them by proper teachers 
it is the fault of the children, and a misfortune 
which they, the mothers, must bear with more 
or less resignation. 

But indeed this is not so. 

Let us take a spiritual mother’s duties in 
rotation, beginning with the most material. 
After bringing into the world the healthiest in- 



88 


THREE THINGS 


fant her common sense has been able to secure, 
she should guard against any physical disability 
accruing to it that she can prevent. In all mat¬ 
ters of health she should either make a great 
study of the subject herself, or employ trained 
aid to its accomplishment; but beyond this there 
are other things which, if she neglects them, the 
boy or girl could reproach her for afterwards 
and with reason. One is the fore-thought for 
beauty. How many boys’ whole personal ap¬ 
pearances are ruined by standing-out ears! How 
many little girls’ complexions are irretrievably 
spoilt by unsuitable soap having been used which 
has burnt red veins into their tender cheeks. 
These two small examples are entirely the fault 
of the mother and do not lie at the door of 
uncorrected habits in the children themselves. 
No boy’s ears need stick out; there are caps and 
every sort of contrivance yearly being improved 
upon to obviate this disfigurement. No girl need 
have anything but a beautiful skin if her mother 
uses intelligence and supervises the early treat¬ 
ment of it. Because if she has the end in view, 
the mother will know that her little boy or girl 
will probably grow up and desire affection and 
happiness, and that beauty is a means not to 
be discounted to obtain these good things, and, 



THREE THINGS 


89 


for the securing of them, is relatively as im¬ 
portant as having a well-endowed mind. 

THE SPIRITUAL MOTHER 

When the first dawning characteristics begin 
to show, the spiritual mother’s study of heredity 
will begin to stand her in good stead, for she 
must never forget that every expressed thought 
and action of a small child shows the indication 
of some undeveloped instinct, and should be 
watched by a sensible mother, so that she may 
decide which one to encourage and which one 
to curb, and, if possible, eradicate. Should 
there be some strong inherited tendency which 
is not good, then her most careful care and 
influence will be needed. There is not the slight¬ 
est use in making rules and then leaving their 
enforcement to servants and governesses—the 
true mother should see that her child thoroughly 
understands what it is being asked to do, and 
why it is being asked to do it. She should 
appeal to its intelligence from earliest days, and 
make it comprehend it is for its own benefit. 
For children cannot when very young be influ¬ 
enced by high moral considerations which come 
with maturer years, but only by personal gain 



90 


THREE THINGS 


or fear—-and if ruled by fear they invariably 
become deceitful. It is a spiritual mother’s 
business to show interest in all her child’s tastes 
and occupations, and to supervise and direct 
them into the best channels, and if she has sev¬ 
eral children she should watch each one’s idio¬ 
syncrasies and not imagine that the same method 
will do for them all. What good gardener 
would treat a rose-tree in the same fashion 
which he does a tulip bulb? The spiritual 
mother should think out for herself, guided by 
what she sees are their personal needs, the best 
method of instructing her children in true moral¬ 
ity—that is, honour and truth, and freedom 
from all hypocrisy and deceit. She should not 
be influenced by any set-down rules of religion 
or dogma, or by any precepts she may have been 
taught herself in her youth, if they no longer 
convey conviction because of the change in time, 
otherwise she will be following -custom and 
losing sight of the end. She should make her 
children understand that the soiling of their own 
souls by committing mean actions is the greatest 
sin, and that what other people think or do not 
think of them is of no consequence, but the only 
vital things are what God thinks and they think 
of themselves. Hundreds of children’s after- 



THREE THINGS 


91 


lives are shipwrecked because they were only 
taught all the dry dogmas and seemings of re¬ 
ligion, and the real meaning was never explained 
to them. I know a rigorously strict clergyman’s 
family where the children are taught and con¬ 
form to all the observances of their father’s 
church, and yet a falser, more paltry set of 
young creatures could not be found—they have 
never had it explained to them that it is impos¬ 
sible to hoodwink God. For a perfect example 
of the religious spirit not to employ towards 
children, all mothers ought to read the im¬ 
mortal scene between Trilby before she dies 
and Mrs. Bagot—when the narrow woman ex¬ 
presses her puny views and Trilby puts forth 
her broad and true ones. It is so incredibly 
stupid to use obsolete methods which can never 
obtain the desired end just because the do¬ 
minion of custom is still strong upon us, and 
we have not been intelligent enough to grasp 
and benefit by the spirit of the age. For all 
mothers must realise that they can never dom¬ 
inate the spirit of the age, and must either 
make vain fights with it, and be conquered to 
their loss, or must make terms with it and use 
it in its brightest and best aspect. The spirit 
of this age is a totally different one to the spirit 



92 


THREE THINGS 


of their own childhood’s age. It is shorn of 
reverence and unquestioning obedience to 
elders, and is an independent creature who will 
only obey through conviction of good or per¬ 
sonal benefit. Children are unerring and piti¬ 
less judges of those placed over them, and how 
can a mother, just because she is a mother, 
expect respect and reverence in her children if 
she earns their contempt by her conduct and 
selfishness? 

It is the spiritual mother’s duty to instil chiv¬ 
alry towards the other sex into her little sons 
from earliest years, by making them polite to 
herself and to their sisters. She should, before 
they go to school and when they return for the 
holidays, endeavour to influence them into 
liking cleanliness and care of their persons, es¬ 
pecially when with ladies. She should try to 
make these little men so happy and contented, 
so certain of sympathy and understanding that 
home spells heaven for them and remains the 
dearest memory of their lives, and for her little 
girls, over whom she has a far vaster influence, 
she should polish their minds, explain all the 
true and pure principles of life—teach them 
the value of self-control and self-respect, and 
watch for and encourage all their graces, so that 



THREE THINGS 98 


when they arrive at the ages of seventeen and 
eighteen they may be fitted in all points to shine 
in whatever world they belong to, and take their 
places among the best of their class. Space for¬ 
bids me to go on longer, although the subject 
seems only just to have been begun, so large 
is its sphere pf action, but I must give one last 
concrete example of two women’s methods, to 
enforce my meaning of the importance of the 
end. 

Both sent their girls to the same school, where 
every accomplishment was taught and the high¬ 
est tone prevailed that the masters could incul¬ 
cate. The first mother showed deep interest in 
the holidays, in all her child’s lessons, directed 
and encouraged her, opening her understanding 
and broadening her point of view, while she 
attended to every physical grace. She explained 
how her child should apply the knowledge she 
acquired during term, so that it should grow 
interesting, and as far as it lay in her power 
she endeavoured that her daughter should be 
fitted with every charm and attraction which 
could procure for her later on a larger selection 
from which to choose her partner in life. The 
other mother let her girl run wild during the 
holidays, and allowed her to feel that all she 



94 


THREE THINGS 


learned was just an irksome duty to be forgotten 
the moment school was over. Her appearance, 
her gentle manners, her refinement, her point of 
view, were all left to take their own chance, 
from the mistaken idea that it would encourage 
vanity and egotism in the girl to discuss these 
things with her—and that she, the mother, had 
done all that was required of her in simply pro¬ 
viding a good education! This second mother 
had completely lost sight of the end, you see, 
and was unconsciously only thinking of herself 
and not of her child at all. 

And this—to think of the welfare of the 
child and allow no other point to obscure this 
—is the whole meaning of the responsibility of 
motherhood. 



VII 


THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MOTHER¬ 
HOOD. SECOND PAPER 

W HAT I always wish to impress upon 
the readers who are kind enough to 
be interested in the articles which I 
write is to keep the end aimed at in view. So 
in this second paper upon the responsibility of 
motherhood, I must begin by reiterating this 
necessity. 

No mother has a right to drift and trust to 
chance for the welfare of her children, and 
however they develop, for good or ill, she must 
in greater or lesser degree be held responsible. 

The period when animals cease all interest in 
and care for their offspring only commences 
when these latter can safely be left to look after 
themselves; and so it should be with human 
beings. But, judging the ages relatively of 
animals and mankind, numbers of human 
mothers entirely neglect their progeny long be¬ 
fore they have come even to the fledgling stage! 
95 


96 


THREE THINGS 


How often in society one sees women of forty- 
five and younger with daughters of fifteen to 
twenty, about whose real characters and souls 
they know nothing! They have always been 
too busy with their own personal interest to 
give the time and sympathy required for a real 
mother’s understanding of her children. Serv¬ 
ants and governesses have been the directors 
through the most critical period of the girls’ 
lives, and it is merely a piece of luck if they 
have imbibed no ill from them. 

There are numbers of worthy and innocent 
women married to men whose characters have 
certain forcible and unpleasant traits, which are 
more than likely to be reproduced in their chil¬ 
dren, but from the limited education these good 
creatures have received, and the absence of all 
habit of personal analysation of cause and ef¬ 
fect, they never realise that it is their bounden 
duty to be on the lookout for the first signs of 
the hereditary traits appearing, and the neces¬ 
sity for using special care and influence to coun¬ 
teract them. 

A woman (unless too vain) knows very well 
her own failings and her own good qualities, 
and can, if she is wise, suppress or encourage 
them when they show in her children; but she 



THREE THINGS 


97 


cannot trace the characteristics of remote an¬ 
cestors, or even be certain of what her husband 
has on his side endowed their joint offspring 
with, so her duty is to be on the watch from 
the very commencement, and to use her intelli¬ 
gence as she already uses it in every ordinary 
affair in life. 

People of even the most mediocre under¬ 
standing are quite sensible enough to select the 
right implements to carry on any work that they 
have undertaken. A woman about to sew a fine 
piece of muslin does not dash haphazard into 
her work-basket and pick out any needle which 
comes first, and any thread, coarse or fine, which 
is handy. She would know very well that her 
work would be a sorry affair if she did so, and 
that, on the contrary, she must choose the exact 
fineness of both thread and needle to sew this 
particular bit of stuff satisfactorily, the ones she 
may have employed an hour before upon firm 
cloth being of no use for muslin. 

She is keeping the end in view. 

LOOKING AHEAD 

But countless numbers of mothers never un¬ 
derstand that any different method is necessary 



98 


THREE THINGS 


with different children; they just go on in the 
old way they have been taught when young 
themselves, if they trouble at all about the 
matter. 

Every woman who has a child ought to ask 
herself these questions: Who is responsible for 
this child being in the world? Am I and my 
husband responsible, or is the child responsible 
itself? The answers are ridiculously obvious, 
and, when realised, the remembrance of them 
should entail grave obligations upon the parents. 

The mother should look ahead and try to 
determine whether or no what seems to be show¬ 
ing as the result of the ideas of up-bringing in 
the past fifteen years is good or bad. 

The main features of that system being the 
relaxation of all discipline and the cessation of 
the inculcation of self-control, because the 
standards suddenly became different. Formerly, 
to perform Duty (spelt with a big D!) was 
the only essential matter in life, and to obtain 
happiness was merely a thing by the way. In 
the past fifteen years the essential goal sought 
after has been happiness, and duty has been 
merely the thing by the way. But a very large 
number of the mothers of England have not 
perhaps begun to develop sufficient scope of 



THREE THINGS 


99 


brain to enable them to judge what will eventu¬ 
ally bring happiness; they can only see the im¬ 
mediate moment, and to indulge their children’s 
every desire seems to be the simplest way. But 
they forget that during this short and impres¬ 
sionable stage of life all strength and will-power 
and self-control ought to be enforced and en¬ 
couraged, to enable the loved children to with¬ 
stand hardships and to attract happiness in the 
long after years. A mother should ask herself 
if it is worth while, in securing a joyous and 
irresponsible childhood and adolescence, to 
leave her children at the end of them unarmed 
and at the mercy of every adverse blast. The 
great dangers which seem to be resulting from 
the system of upbringing in the last fifteen years 
are that at seventeen or eighteen most young 
people are satiated with pleasure and blase with 
life, while they have no definite aim or end of 
achievement in view, and absolutely no sense of 
duty or responsibility to the community. 

THE FIRST OBLIGATION 

It would seem to me that a mother’s first 
obligation is to enforce discipline, and to teach 
self-control from the earliest infancy with the 



100 


THREE THINGS 


fondest loving care, and to transmit that sense 
of responsibility for noble citizenship into her 
children which should have been her own guid¬ 
ing star. 

But, again, to do so she must not employ 
obsolete methods without taking into account the 
spirit of the age which has aroused a sense of 
personal liberty in the youngest child, and makes 
it refuse to accept rules and regulations on trust. 
It must be convinced that they are for its good, 
or it will only bow to them by fear, learn to 
deceive, and remain rebellious and determined 
at the first opportunity to throw off the yoke 
and go its own way. I will give a concrete case 
of what I mean upon this point, to show how 
even a good woman can misunderstand the real 
meaning of the responsibility of motherhood, 
and by her method of upbringing can allow mis¬ 
fortune to fall upon her young family. 

Here is a lady of the highest rank, who comes 
of a steady and worthy stock, and who has been 
brought up herself strictly and well. She mar¬ 
ries a man of great position, but with rather 
wild blood in his veins. She has no modem 
ideas of only desiring a small family; she wishes 
to and intends to do her duty to her state, and is 
by no means set upon personal amusement. 



THREE THINGS 


101 


As the years go on she becomes the mother 
of four boys and two girls. She engages the 
best nurses for them, and, later on, the best gov¬ 
ernesses and tutors. The children are taught 
their catechism on Sundays and are drilled 
as those of their class into having good out¬ 
ward manners and behaviour. They are given 
orders without explanations, which they are ex¬ 
pected to obey unquestioningly, and they are 
duly punished when they are disobedient. They 
see their parents at stated hours each day, and 
are seemingly a well-regulated and satisfactory 
young brood. 

The good woman and great lady’s time is 
naturally much occupied with social duties, and 
duties to her husband’s tenants, and to various 
charities and good works in which she is inter¬ 
ested. She fulfils all these admirably, and is 
generally held in affection and respect. All the 
children have been treated exactly the same by 
her, although she knows that her husband has 
a dishonourable, gambling, scapegrace brother 
who has had to be sent to Australia, and that 
her husband himself has had tastes, the reverse 
of orthodox where his emotions were concerned, 
though happily he has not jeopardised the family 
fortunes as his brother would have done had he 



102 


THREE THINGS 


been head. All the children have been so well 
brought up and instructed in the tenets of the 
Church that she feels quite placid and sure that 
she has done all that could be expected of her, 
and is horribly surprised and distressed when 
disasters presently occur. She looks upon them 
as the will of God and fate, but feels in no way 
to blame personally. 

A HATRED OF PREACHING 

It had never struck her intelligence that boys 
with such heredity in them should have been 
specially influenced and directed from earliest 
youth towards ideas of the finest honour and 
proudest responsibility in keeping unblemished 
their ancient name; that all the stupidities and 
follies of gambling should have been pointed 
out to them; that the certain temptations which 
are bound to beset the path of those in their 
position should have been fully explained to 
them—all this done in a simple, common-sense 
fashion which would convince their understand¬ 
ing. She had never thought that it would be 
wise to make them clearly comprehend why they 
should try to resist bad habits and youthful lusts 
of the flesh—not so much from the point of 



THREE THINGS 


103 


view that such things are sins, as because science 
and experience have shown that the indulgence 
in them spoils health and brain and pleasure in 
manhood. Boys are creatures full of common 
sense, and their education in public schools 
broadens and helps their understanding of 
logical sequences, if only things are explained 
to them without mystery and too much spiritual 
emphasis being put upon them. They so hate 
being preached at! No young, growing person 
in normal animal health and spirits can be guided 
and coerced to resist the desires of the body 
solely by religious and moral teaching; he must 
have some definite reward and gain upon this 
earth held out to him as well; there must be 
some tangible reason for abstinence to convince 
his imagination and strengthen his will. And 
the gain he is offered if he resists certain tempta¬ 
tions is that he will grow strong and powerful, 
and the better able, when his judgment is ripe 
enough to discriminate properly, to enjoy real 
pleasures later on. When the adolescent spirit¬ 
ual self begins to rule him, then the moral point 
can be more forcibly pressed home; but it is 
quite futile while he is at the growing animal 
stage. 

Our good and highly placed mother of whom 



104 


THREE THINGS 


we are speaking has never thought of any of 
these laws of cause and effect, as applied to her 
own nearest and dearest, although she is accus¬ 
tomed to think out schemes for the betterment 
and development of her Girls’ Friendly societies, 
or for furthering her husband’s political inter¬ 
ests in the country. 

INHERITED CHARACTER 

She sees good little well-behaved daughters 
coming down in “ the children’s hour ” and re¬ 
ceives favourable reports from the governesses, 
and has no idea, or even any speculation about 
what strange and new thoughts and emotions 
may be commencing to germinate in their brains. 
Mildred has perhaps inherited her father’s 
volage nature where the other sex are concerned, 
and early shows tendencies which ought to be 
sympathetically checked and directed. Cath¬ 
erine has got a strong touch of Uncle Billy’s 
unscrupulousness, and is often deceitful and 
scheming, with a wonderful aptitude for the 
nursery dominoes and other games of chance. 
But both, taught by Fraulein or Mademoiselle 
—and that good old Nurse Timson!—only show 
their mother their sweetest side when in her 



THREE THINGS 


105 


company, and are meek, well-behaved little mice, 
influenced to be thus not from any moral con¬ 
viction—because if that were so they would be 
good at all times as well—but swayed by the 
certain knowledge of personal physical gain if 
they make a good impression upon mother, and 
certain punishment and unpleasantness from the 
governesses if they do not All goes along 
smoothly until the rising sap of nature begins 
to dominate their lives; then some outward and 
visible sign of their inherited tendencies begins 
to show, the force causing its expression being 
stronger for the time than any other thing. 

One of the boys gambles, and goes to the 
Jews for money. The eldest son and heir, who 
has never had the wiles of women revealed and 
explained to him, or the temptations which are 
bound to be thrust upon him because of his great 
position in the world pointed out to him, suc¬ 
cumbs to the fascinations and falls into the 
snares of a cunning chorus girl. Our good 
mother and great lady has steadily avoided even 
admitting that there can be sex questions in life, 
and has rigorously banished all possible discus¬ 
sion of them as not being a subject which should 
be talked of in any nice family. She has never 
given any especial teaching to arouse pride in 



106 


THREE THINGS 


his old name in her eldest son, or impressed 
the great responsibility there is in the worthy 
guardianship of the fine position God has en¬ 
dowed him with. He has just been allowed to 
drift with the rest, and, unwarned and unarmed, 
has fallen in the first fight with his physical emo¬ 
tions. 


INSTINCTS UNCHECKED 

A third son is apparently the darling of the 
gods; he is full of charm. But, fearing that 
the gambling propensities of his second brother 
should come out in him also, his parents keep 
him with special strictness and very short of 
money. The same absence of all explanations 
of the meaning of things has been his portion 
as well as that of his brothers and sisters. He 
has never been enlightened as to the possible 
workings of heredity, and shown how that as the 
vice of gambling is in the blood it will require 
special will-power to overcome it. None of 
these things has been pointed out to him, and 
so, being restive at restraint and worried for 
money, he soon slips into easy ways, and often 
allows women to help him in his difficulties. 
Uncle Billy’s instincts and his own father’s have 
combined in him. Both could have been checked 



THREE THINGS 


107 


and diverted into sane channels with loving fore¬ 
sight and knowledge and sympathy. 

The fourth son goes early into the Navy, and 
the discipline and the inheritance of his mother’s 
more level qualities turn him into a splendid 
fellow; but this is mere chance, and cannot 
be counted as accruing from his mother’s 
care. 

Here is a case where every outward circum¬ 
stance seemed to be propitious, and where both 
parents were good and respected members of 
their class and race. But neither had the intel¬ 
ligence to realise an end, or consciously to keep 
it in view; they were solely ruled by tradition 
and what seemed to them—especially the mother 
—to be the proper and well-established religious 
methods for the bringing up of their children. 
So the remorseless laws of cause and effect 
rolled on their Juggernaut car and crushed the 
victims. 

Now, if this mother had had the end—that 
of her children’s happiness and welfare—really 
in view, she would have questioned herself as to 
the best methods of obtaining that end, and 
would not have been content just to go on with 
the narrow ideas which had held sway in her 
own day, and which had perhaps then succeeded 



108 


THREE THINGS 


very well, because, as I said before, they were 
aided by the two forces now stultified—namely, 
a tremendous discipline and a spirit of the age 
which brought no suggestion of a struggle for 
personal liberty to young minds. Had she 
thought out all these things, she would have 
understood the responsibilities of motherhood 
in their real sense, and not only in the sense 
which the outward appearance judges good. 
She would have poured love and sympathy on 
each one of her children separately and individ¬ 
ually, since she was the half-cause of their com¬ 
ing to earth. She would have studied each one’s 
character, and with determined concentration 
have inculcated the necessary pride in fine actions 
in them, knowing what their pitfalls would be 
likely to be. She would have taught the simple 
religion of respect for the loan God has made 
in giving their bodies a soul, and she would have 
watched for possible signs of ill, and would 
finally have guided each one through the dan¬ 
gerous age on to the time when every man 
and woman must answer for himself and her¬ 
self. 

Heredity is sometimes stronger than even the 
wisest bringing up; but who can say how many 
families might not have been saved and kept 



THREE THINGS 


109 


together by a prudent and understanding moth¬ 
er’s love? 

There is a story, which exactly illustrates the 
point of the importance of keeping the end in 
view, told of the Iron Duke in the Peninsular 
War. I cannot remember the exact details, and 
they are of no consequence. The point is this: 
There was a certain tremendously obstinate 
Spanish general whom the Duke (then Sir 
Arthur Wellesley) found very difficult to lead. 
The moment had arrived when it was absolutely 
necessary for success that this general should 
move his troops to a certain position. He was 
a man filled with his own importance, and he 
refused huffily to do so unless the English chief 
went down upon his knees to him! 

The Iron Duke is reported to have replied 
to this message in some such words as these: 
“ Good Lord! the winning of the day is the 
essential thing, not the resisting of the man’s 
vanity! I’ll go down upon my knees with pleas¬ 
ure if that will make him move his troops!” 
He did, and the Spanish general conceded the 
request and the day was won. 

The great commander and astute Englishman 
had the end in view, you see, whereas the lesser 
brain of the Spaniard would have sacrificed the 



110 


THREE THINGS 


battle for a personal whim, having lost sight, 
in his vanity, of the importance of the main 
issue. 

How many parents do this day after day and 
year after year, clinging to obsolete methods, 
trying to rule by worn-out precepts, all because 
—when you come to analyse it—their own sense 
of importance really matters to them more than 
their children’s welfare, and no one has opened 
their eyes to see themselves and their actions in 
the true light. 

Although the case which I have just given 
of the seemingly good mother was drawn from 
the highest class, and so at first sight might not 
be said to apply to lesser grades, yet I want to 
show that this is not so, but that the same prin¬ 
ciple applies to the most modest little family. 

Every mother should study how best she can 
develop and elevate the souls which by her own 
part-action she has brought into being, and make 
that aim her first thought—for surely the sat¬ 
isfaction of the feeling that one has succeeded 
in training one’s own children to high ideals 
and the attainment of happiness would be 
greater in old age than any gratification from the 
acquirement of social supremacy or realised per¬ 
sonal ambitions. 



THREE THINGS 


111 


I would implore every mother, of any class, 
ruthlessly to reject all the rules which she has 
been taught for the guidance of her family, un¬ 
less she has proved with common sense that they 
can he profitably applied to each particular case. 
I would ask her to keep to no transmitted 
axiom, unless it comes up to the requirements 
of the ever-changing and ever-advancing day. 
There is only one unchangeable and immutable 
command which we should follow, and this is 
that we should not soil our souls, or render them 
up to God degraded and smirched when we go 
hence upon that journey from whence no man 
returneth. 

In summing up both my articles upon the re¬ 
sponsibility of motherhood, I find that in this 
second one I have made two statements which 
might read as contradictions. Firstly, I spoke 
of young people requiring personal gain to be 
held out to them as a reason for committing, or 
refraining from committing, certain actions; and 
then, a paragraph or two afterwards, I gave the 
illustration of the little girls’ good behaviour 
to their mother as being only caused by the 
fact that it was more to their advantage so to 
behave. What I meant to show was that while 
boys are young and full of the rising impulses 



112 


THREE THINGS 


of nature they very rarely can have acquired 
sufficient spiritual belief to make them refrain 
from indulging in certain pleasures—or what 
seem pleasures to them—merely because they 
have been told these pleasures are wrong. For 
instance, on the subject of smoking. What boy 
will stop smoking by being told it is wrong and 
that he is sinning by his disobedience ? But there 
are many intelligent ones who will not indulge 
in it if it is explained to them that smoking 
will stop their growth and make them less likely 
to succeed in the cricket eleven, or, later, in the 
college eight. At that period the mind cannot 
look into unseen worlds, and is mainly occupied 
with realities from day to day, and therefore is 
more likely to be influenced by a simple explana¬ 
tion of what physical harm or what good in the 
immediate future will be the result of actions. 

The little girls’ behaviour to their mother 
is really an example of this same rule, only the 
principle for their action was not good, being 
merely temporary and strictly limited gain, and 
not that they should, as in the case of the boys, 
grow into fine, strong and healthy people, more 
able to enjoy life in the future. 

There is another statement which I have con¬ 
stantly made which possibly might be twisted 



THREE THINGS 


118 


or misunderstood, and that is the one of the 
importance of the end. There are people who 
would turn it into the Jesuitical motto of “ The 
end justifies the means.” That is not what I 
wished to convey at all, but that if an end is 
good—and the main object, admittedly, is to 
obtain it—then there is no use in using methods 
which once might have accomplished this, but 
which no longer are practical because of the 
changed conditions, and if continued in will only 
lose all possibility of success. 

How many fathers and mothers in past days 
have driven their offspring to disgrace and even 
death by adhering to harsh, Puritanical systems, 
out of date even at that time! And how many 
more to-day let them slip into the same abysses 
by their too indulgent rule! 

As I have said, over and over again, the proof 
of any pudding is in the eating of it; so let 
every mother examine her methods with her chil¬ 
dren by this standard: Are the children develop¬ 
ing in moral and physical welfare by those which 
she is using, or are they retrogressing? Is she 
employing tact to guide their young fierce spirits, 
or is she trying to crush them by old-fashioned 
rules ? 

Questions such as these ought to be honestly 



114 


THREE THINGS 


asked by each mother of herself, and if the 
answer proves that retrogression is in progress, 
then she should not be so incredibly stupid as 
to continue in her old lines, but should examine 
herself and see how she can find the right new 
ones for her particular cases. La Rochefoucauld 
was wise when he said that vanity was at the 
root of most human mistakes. If a woman is 
not willing to undertake the true responsibility 
of motherhood, then she had far better be that 
sad thing which is a growing quantity in modern 
civilisation, namely, a childless wife devoted to 
dogs. Hundreds of selfish, neurotic females 
show the utmost unselfish devotion to wretched 
little pet animals, when the slightest self-denial 
asked of them for little human atoms is more 
than they can accord. What does this mean? Is 
it a writing upon the wall? 




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